Only one life with you
by Eruebe
Summary: Uran is burning. The Prince died saving his love an aqua haired goddess. For her it is a curse to live for eternity and watch her beloved ones dying one by one.
1. Prologue

Ok, here it is. The Prologue to my first story. I hope I will regularly update it. The plan is on my mind, but I don't want to have that big of a summary, because everything is possible to change in another second.

I don't own anything of Sailor Moon. Unfortunately.

The story plays in Nepta (reminds hopefully the most of you of Neptun), so it is an alternate universe. You can see already in the prologue that I use the characters but change sometimes the gender or whatever. It's all based around Michiru and Haruka, so they will stay the same as everybody knows them.

For example Setsuna is called Sets and male. Also Hotaru (Hotar). But who knows, perhaps they have daughters or something like that. I will see.

So enjoy the prologue and give me also a feedback with negative content. Because I think there is many to improve especially because of my native tongue German.^^

_** -ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-**_

_**Only one life with you.**_

„I will find you – no matter where and when!"

_Especially the when…_

-ö-

Nepta.

A world divided by power struggles.

Enemies.

Alliances.

Never ending wars.

And two moons witnessing the whole tragedy.

-ö-

Clouds occupied the light of the two moons. It should have been one of the darkest nights in Nepta, but it couldn't.

_Don't look back._

A black horse ran at its limits. Its rider didn't have any pardon and powered the horse more and more to go faster.

_Don't look back._

The smell of fire was still strong and the horizon was still visible red.

_Don't look back._

The black cloak was swinging in the wind as his hood wide in his face hiding the rider's identity.

Only the sounds of the horse were audible. Not visible to any passersby, he rode through the country and left a burning city.

-ö-

It was short after midnight, when the sky cleared and both moons were fully visible. Side by side.

Only the light of the moons spent some warmth luminance in a darkness surrounded village. The village of Momend.

Hushed and slow hooves on the cobbled pavement were in evidence. But no one was around to actually listen. The lights of the houses and farms were off. Everybody was sleeping.

Except the barn of the blacksmith.

The black coated man was directly heading the farm with the lighted barn. There the gate stood wide open and in the light was a human shadow.

"It took you pretty long, Sets!" the man in the gate was now fully visible. His whispers only to the rider audible, who was reaching the gate and smoothly jumped off his horse.

"Uran is burning, nothing is left!" Sets spoke cold and distant, his features hidden by the hood. He closed the distance between them and stood in front of the man overtopping him by half a head.

The man in the gate was visibly shocked to hear such words from the rider. His fists stirred into his light brown nightgown, while his purple eyes behind black strands stared into red eyes and searched for the pureness of the words. And when he found it, realization hit him and he had to break the eye contact. Anger, frustration and sadness were growing.

Silence took place.

"Hotar?"

The rider cleared his green long hair by removing his hood. Sad and tired orbes focused the man in front of them. "Hotar?"

Said one raised his head and looked back in red eyes, while Sets drew his cloak back and released a ravel of foulards.

"Sets!" Hotar took a sharp breath in. His whisper was nervous and surprised. He took the ravel, Sets offered him and took it on one arm. His free hand moved to redo foulard after foulard, till blond strands, small peaked ears and a sleeping baby face appeared.

-ö-

"Is this… ?" Hotar shook his head. "That's…" He flustered merely audible. Sets put his hands on Hotars shoulders. "Let's go inside."

Hotar only nod and closed the gate after the rider and his black horse were inside the barn. He couldn't leave his eyes off the little baby, whilst Sets prepared his horse for the stay.

When Sets was finished he had to smirk a little when he saw Hotar smiling and staring at the little blond while cradling the new life. But realization hit him after some seconds and his smile faded. "Hotar!"

Alarmed purple eyes stared into red ones. Hotar understood, nod and took the light in his free hand leading Sets out of the Barn through the dark house to the guestroom , where the latest arriver would spend the night.

Sets closed the door behind them. The little chamber had only a bed and a stool. There was no window. A perfect place to talk.

Hotar put the light on the stool and turned around to face Sets. His vision covered with questions. "Is this…?" Finally he stuttered.

Sets only nodded. "Uran is burning! The Queen and the King died. And moreover our Prince died." The green haired man looked with a sad expression to the ground. "We failed." He hushed.

"How?" Sets looked up into the serious face of Hotar.

"He saved her… and died in front of her!"

Hotar did a sharp breathe in, his eyes growing in disbelieve. Then he said serious. "I told you he couldn't betray her!" Sets looked to the side and nod lightly.

Suddenly there was barely audible sigh. Red and purple eyes fixed on the baby.

"I hope she can!"


	2. 1: The amulet

Here I am again. It's hopefully enjoyable. Read and Review

**The amulet.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

_-53 years later-_

It was summer. Momend was a village half build in hills covered by trees. The Black Forest. The Black Forest. One of the biggest and most dangerous forests in the world of Nepta. It crossed all three lands of Plut, Uran and Nepta. The other half of the village was in the valley where a river divided the village from its fields and the wide grassland. Only a couple of the numerous farms were visible till the horizon ended the wideness.

A white horse galloped with its rider through plain grass and dry fields. Teal eyes searched for a specific farm.

A brown loose tunic and white pants covered the body. A bow and arrow around the torso.

Short blond hair waved in unison with the wind. The peaked ears listening to the blurring song of the wind. A young face smiled into the breezing air. Black boots forced to a faster pace when a certain farm became visible.

The hoofbeats were loud enough to announce the arrival of a horse. A brown haired woman turned to the direction of the village. She wore a basic garment and a pinafore. Her tired eyes and skin revealed her middle age.

"Haruka!" She whispered, when she recognized a white dot from afar. She was gathering apples around an apple tree near a little farm. Momend was at the horizon only visible as a brownish grey dot in front of the Black Forest hills. It was about noon and the sun was standing low. She had to shield the light rays by a hand when her green eyes scanned the horizon one more time to see now a white horse which was heading her. It needed only seconds till the white dot afar was that big, that she could identify blond hair and a brown too familiar tunic.

"Haruka!" She shouted now and stepped barefoot towards the person arriving, holding the apples in her white pinafore. She got really excited about the arrival of her old friend and a big smile formed on her face.

The horse got slower upon reaching the tall brunette and finally stopped in front of her snuffling for the apples in her pinafore. "Lacrima!" The barefoot woman shook her head with a grin and pulled out an apple offering it to the female horse, recognizing it as the white foal she saw years ago. "The last time I've seen you, you were smaller than a pony, Lacrima." She caressed the white mane, watching the horse eating the apple. It was obvious that the older woman avoided looking into teal eyes.

Haruka slipped smoothly from Lacrimas back and tapped its shoulders. The blond was taller than the brunette and the tan of the skin was far darker.

"And I don't know when it was the last time I've seen you Haruka!" Green orbs turned to see the blond caressing the horse as she did.

"Makoto!" After a deep breath the rider dared to turn and locked teal eyes with green ones.

Makotos eyes widened as she eyed up her friend. Apples fell to the ground when both her hands rose in shock to her face. Lacrima nickered and took another apple. "You still grow!" She exclaimed. The blond nodded. "And your face…" She shook her head while stretching one hand to touch the cheek of Haruka when she felt how smooth and young the skin still was. "You know I never believed those words of my son, when he told me, that you didn't change and still look pretty, young, even younger than him… and not to say…" She smirked. "…handsome…"

Harukas cheeks colored by the compliment. Teal eyes never leaving the green ones. "So do you Makoto!" The husky voice of the rider sounded serious.

"Ha, still the charmer!" She choked, took the hand off and put it instead on her own face to feel the difference. "You are eight years older than me but do look like 30 years younger than me." She shook her head. "No… I don't look handsome any more. Not to mention pretty and young. I'm not like you Haruka. I'm aging. I'm old and become day after day more hideous." She remembered her time, when she was that pretty brunette girl, who her old friend once loved and whom she loved in return. "Every crease of my skin makes me thinking about my youth…"

"Our youth!" The blond protested.

"Oh no Haruka, you are definitely still in your young days." She grinned a sad smile, turned away and picked up the apples which were still left of Lacrimas hunger.

Haruka kneeled by her side and helped her, their hands touching when both wanted to grab the last fruit. Their eyes locked and whilst standing up Haruka released the grip for the last apple and Makotos hand who passed the blond taking the fruits and heading the little farm.

"I don't think that you were coming to visit an old woman. What is it that you come now, after all these years?"

Haruka looked to Lacrima and flustered in her ear to wait then ran after the brunette woman who was already reaching the house. She put the apples in a basket next to the door.

"Makoto!" The brunette turned. "All the years don't have to say anything. You are still the woman I knew once. Our adventures together are with me every day. You are with me. I still love you and you know that!"

A small smile grew on the Makotos face. "Yuki isn't here. He's out hunting with his father."

Haruka only nod. "I'm not here for Yuki." Green eyes widened but Haruka added quickly. "No, and I'm not here for Usagi either." The blonde chuckled lightly. "I'm not involved in anything concerning your daughter! I don't have anything in common with my reputation!"

"Oh you do!" That was Makotos turn to chuckle leaving the blond with an open mouth and a shocked expression. Her features relaxed, than she nodded. She knew the answer why her friend came in first place and her gaze saddened. "You are here for the amulet." She sobbed. A tear ran down her cheek. "This means…!"

Harukas hand rushed to wipe the tear away. "I have to say goodbye to you!"

The older woman sobbed even harder at the words and began to cry when she felt the blonde embracing her. She took the offer and squeezed the blonde hard. There they stood some minutes and when she calmed down, she sadly rose her head to face Haruka, who smiled comfortingly.

"I love you." The brunette whispered. A nod and Haruka started to lean in to kiss her goodbye never leaving green eyes. Shortly their lips were pressed together, their orbs still connected.

"Come on, the amulet is not far." Makoto managed to speak serious after they broke the kiss and disconnected the embrace. She walked along the house to find a shovel leaning against the wall. She grabbed it and walked to the apple tree she was picking up the apples only minutes ago. "Oh and by the way, your breasts did grow too."

Haruka looked dumbfounded, then down. But she couldn't see anything. The binding and the tunic hid her true gender very good. Then she chuckled and smiled following her. That was the Makoto she knew from the past, who she loved as a sister, a friend and sometime even more than that. She remembers the little baby, how she grow, became her friend as a little child, than the teen and when she got an adult, while the blondes body still kept the mode of a young teen. But they did have their adventures up to the day the brunette married their common best friend Koren, also one of their group. The birth of Yuki was the beginning. Makoto had to look after her children, especially when Usagi was born. So only Koren was left to join Haruka for travels and adventures until then Yuki was old enough and took the fathers place to join the blonde.

"Ok, from here on fourteen big footsteps to the village." Makoto told the blonde pointing to Momend.

Haruka snapped out of her memories and watched the brunette leaning against the tree and then jumping for big footsteps into the grassland. "Why fourteen? Yukiro told me once it's been eight." She stated, remembering the old grey haired man.

"It was. But when my dad died four years ago, I changed it." She smiled.

Haruka raised an eyebrow. Now she was curious. "So, tell me, why did you choose fourteen?"

"When I turned thirteen my dear Haruka, I passed you." She stopped at her fourteenth footstep. Her smile grew even wider. "One long year I was one centimeter taller than you, but besides your body never passed mine again in evolution. So one and thirteen are fourteen." She twinkled to Haruka amused. She then tramped a little on the ground, only to hear, that it sounded hollowly. She nodded. That was the right spot. "Would you give me the shovel Haruka?"

"Of course." The blonde lift the shovel off the ground and brought it to Makoto who started immediately to dig.

She had to remove exactly fourteen shovels of soil till she bounced a wooden coffer. "Again fourteen?" Blond eyebrows rose.

"It's my magic number." Makoto smiled kneeling down and opening the coffer directly in the hole. She stroked her old bow and some arrows when she discovered the red bag. Linen with silk. She grabbed it, almost falling in the hole, stood up and cleaned it. With shaking hands she handed it the blonde.

Haruka examined the bag. There was a grey emblem with an eagle on it. _The royal emblem of Uran._

"Nobody opened the bag for all the years it's been now in my family. My grandfather got it from Sets. I don't know when and I don't know why. What I know, is, that it belongs to the Royal Family. To you Haruka."

Haruka nodded. She knew that Sets brought her to Hotar this one night, when her parents died. Hotar told her first yesterday that there was a red bag with a grey emblem in the foulards in which the blonde was wrapped in. Sets took it leaving the baby behind at Hotars place and brought it to Makotos grandfather whose family hid it. Only Haruka didn't know about the sack for her safety. There was something going on with the amulet. _Why would nobody tell her something about the existence till now? And why does she have to leave when she gets the amulet?_

It was now or never. She wanted to see the thing which was going to change her life. She untied the bag and revealed a long decorated golden string and amulet. Haruka felt a force coming from the necklace. She took it in one hand. When her bare skin touched the grey stone embedded in the amulet she felt it. The energy. A familiar energy. The blonde remembered it somehow. Her muscles tighten feeling the power rising in her veins. Pictures came to her mind. A city burning. People dying. A tuft of aqua hair.

_Don't look back. _

And in the next moment it was gone.

Haruka sighed. "Strange." She checked it once more. Her hand ran over the surface. The stone showed as well the royal emblem. But there was something else. She turned it when she recognized that it can be opened.

"It won't open." Teal eyes stared in green. "You need a key. But you don't have it."

"What kind of key. I don't see a lock. How do…?"

"Sets told my grandfather, that you have to find out by yourself! I don't know anything about the amulet."

Haruka lifted an eyebrow than nodding. She bagged the amulet and tied the sack firm to her belt. This would be enough for the ride back. She turned to look for her horse and piped for her to come.

Lacrima walked slowly following her master's call.

"Does Yuki and Usagi accompany you?" Makoto hold Harukas arm asking concerned.

"I don't know. I mean, they know where to find me. And they know that I leave. So it's up to them. I don't force them."

Makoto nodded. Her sadden face came back. "Farewell, my prince."

She did half a curtsey when Haruka stopped her by holding softly her chin and forced her to stand up and lock eyes with her. "Thank you for everything." The blonde whispered gratefulness and made a full curtsey. "I'm only a blacksmith. So you should be the princess." She took Makotos hand and pecked it, remembering the childhood when she played the prince. "Farewell my princess." She then turned and jumped gracefully on Lacrima, letting behind a surprised Makoto.

Makoto shook her head to realize the situation. Then she smiled up the horse pointing to the bow and arrow. "Besides, where is your sword blacksmith?"

"You know, Yuki and Usagi are more like Koren. They are not that good with bow and arrow as their mother was." The rider twinkled. "So I have to improve my skills to survive."

And with that the blonde spurred her horse leaving a reminisced Makoto. The wind brought her the last time the whispers of the brunette. _Farewell, my prince of Uran._

_Don't look back._

_ -ö-_

It was dark in the royal chamber. A big bed stood on the opposite wall to the door. It was centered between two big windows. The baldachin of the royal bed was open. On it was a sleeping form. A restless woman. Her breathes were loud and sharp. A sweat glimmer glittered on the white skin, illuminated by the source of the two moons. Her white short nightgown was crinkled by the uneasy sleep. With every roll her aqua hair tossed around.

_The royal amulet of Uran. It's back to its true holder._

Suddenly the girl jumped into a seating position. Her deep blue eyes staring full of emotions into the darkness.

"Haruka!"

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Chapter 2 is already in progress. ;-)


	3. 2: Obsessed

Hey, here I am again. My native tongue is German, so you have to understand my bounded vocabulary as well as the grammar. I hope it's ok. If somebody has anything to recommend, just do so, also about the content, because I'm not pretty sure of it, if it will fit in the end. ;-)

So, enjoy.

**Obsessed.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Twilight showed when Haruka returned and entered the barn of her foster-father. Blonde brows furrowed when she noticed an unfamiliar black horse standing next to two brown ones. She closed the gate and led Lacrima to the other horses. There she prepared the white horse for stay and took a better look at the black one. The eyes looked pretty old.

When Haruka was finished she took the oil lamp Hotar left on and opened the door to the blacksmith shop. She removed her bow and arrow before she untied the red sack off her belt. Careless she threw it to the table in front of her the amulet skidding out. Then she grabbed for a near hammer.

"I wouldn't do that!" A serious and low voice sounded.

Haruka startled and turned around to face the intruder. Her grip tightened around the hammer. "Who are you?" She located a person right behind her, but couldn't see anything in the dark corner.

"Are you afraid?" the person asked amused and stood up from the stool where he sat. The contours were finally clear to see. Haruka stiffened when the man took a step towards her. Now he dived into the light of her lamp. The man was as tall as the blonde. He had a muscular body and was clothed totally in black. One more step and long green hair revealed. His angular face was full of green plugs.

"Stop right there. What do you want?" Teal eyes bored into red ones. Haruka remembered the old looking eyes of the nevertheless young looking black horse. This man was the same. He radiated wisdom and experience but his appearance instead was young like his early thirties. And then there were his peaked ears like hers. _A creature of the long living ones? Or even of eternity?_

The green haired man only nodded reading the blondes mind. "Obviously yes Haruka. I'm like you." Then he smiled. "I haven't seen you in half a century." His voice was lighthearted. His red orbs eyed up the woman in front of him. "I've thought about not giving you in Hotars hands, because I knew he would raise you as a boy." His smile widened. "But some fragments of my memory of a long departed time tell me that this is actually your will."

Harukas mind was racing. _How does that man know about her being a woman?_ She never saw him before; she was pretty sure about it. But somehow his appearance was quite familiar to some of her retrospections. Retrospections of a previous live. _Could it be? Sets. _Her stiffness disappeared. "Sets?"

The green haired man nod brightly grinning. "You remember me!" He closed the distance between them and put his hands on Harukas shoulders.

Haruka somehow didn't mind. Her memory told her that this man was a friend although she didn't know anything about him except that he was the one who brought her to this family, to Hotar. Their eyes locked. Sets was the one taking her from her real family and bringing this amulet to Makotos family. This man was the answer of her questions.

She took the first question on her mind. "What… what happened to my parents that night?"

As he heard the words Sets smile faded. His look turned concerned. He knew that the girl had many questions. Too many. His voice sounded low and saddened. "That night I found you was the end of a city. The end of a nation. Uran was burning. It was a betrayal." He shook his head in disbelieve. "They killed all people. First the men… then women and children. I was an Uranian soldier at this time working side by side with the Uranian prince. His parents were already dead when we were the only two left. The prince wanted to look for the last thing he lived for and when he found it, he died protecting it not knowing that it was a trap." He paused seeing again his friend and prince as an illusion right in front of him bleeding to death. "I left him and made my way through the burning city and that was when I found you. It was in a wagon-makers shop. Your father and mother already dead I took you with me. We were the only ones surviving the massacre. I didn't know your parents before they died. I'm sorry."

Harukas eyes saddened. She looked to the side. "Why did the traitors left me alive when they killed everybody else?"

"You were a newborn Haruka. Something drew me to you." He pointed to the amulet. "I've got it from the prince. It was his one. But when I entered the shop, I didn't feel any living creature. I found your father. He was in the front room. He had a sword in his hand. Next to him were three men of the betrayal. He was a brave man. Blond hair as yours. Then I entered the sitting room where two women lay lifeless on the ground. One shielded a newborn baby but who was as well inanimate. The other woman was probably a midwifery. So, after finding nothing alive I was about to leave when I heard traitors wanting to rob the shop. I thought the amulet misjudged the situation, so I turned to go but there I was again irritated by the amulet. That was when I heard you suddenly cry. I could swear you were as lifeless as all the others, but there you were dithering and roaring. I took you from your protecting mother, wrapped you in some of her foulards and thereafter we fled. The soldiers before probably thought you were as well dead, as I did the first time."

A single tear ran down Harukas cheek, when she visualized the happened events. She backed off and turned towards the amulet. Her left one set down the hammer on the table next to it. Her right hand was reaching for the piece of jewellery and when she touched it there was a short shock but nothing else. A picture of an aqua tuft appeared in her mind. "What was it the Prince died for?"

Sets sighed. "The princess of Nepta." And with the last word a door suddenly opened. An additional lamp lit up the room.

"Haruka. Sets." Hotar entered the room. "I think you had enough time to get to know each other. It's already dark outside. Let's go and have dinner. My wife prepared something for us."

"Thank you Hotar!" Sets nodded and passed Haruka who was still scanning the amulet. "Bag it and take it with you. You won't be able to force it open."

A blonde brow rose. She was about to ask him about the amulet but decided that she could do it later. Then she did what she'd been told and took the red sack and the lamp with her following Hotar and Sets to the dining room. There were already her foster mother Mila and her four brothers and her only sister sitting at the big round table. The whole family was eternities. That's why Hotar and Mila looked only about ten years older than their sons, who looked in contrast more like Haruka but were nevertheless about two centuries older than her. All of them had black hair, as well as the little girl sitting next her mother. Haruka sat between her and Hotar. Her sister was twelve years younger than her but her body was at the age of six. She had purple eyes instead of brown ones like her brothers and her mother had. She had obviously the look of her father. Her name was Hotaru.

"Shall the spirit of eternity be with us. Enjoy your meal!" Hotar directed the words to the round and slurped one spoon of the potato soup. This was the sign that the rest could start to eat as well. And all did in silence.

Only Hotaru swept her eyes from brother to brother and finally to Sets who was sitting next to her father and Arat her youngest brother. "So you are this man my family talked about all the years behind my back?"

Sets chewed one piece of his bread and raised his red orbs from his soup bowl to catch Hotaru's purples. "What makes you think that little girl?"

Haruka's and her brothers' eyebrows lifted their eyes. They knew that the little girl didn't like to be called like this. "And what makes you think I'm a little girl? I'm sorry to say that, sir, but the outward appearance can hide so much of the reality that it can cheat and kill you faster than you think.

I thought the big Sets everybody talked about would know something like that." She sounded like an instructor and grinned sarcastically keeping the eye contact.

"I thought about talking to you in a proper way, because I know that your appearance is not with your spirit." He smiled. "But when I saw the rattle and the doll at your belt, I assumed that you want to be talked to like a little girl." Touché.

Haruka looked up to see Hotarus reaction out of the corner of her eyes. That was a really good contra. Sometimes she was that little girl she looked like. That wasn't deniable. But nevertheless her spirit was far in front of Harukas and her brothers. She was gifted to predict.

"What would the other children in the village think of me?" She asked defeated.

"I don't know, but probably they think about you nevertheless, because you're staying at this state for much longer than they do." Sets twinkled.

Hotaru was about to add something, but her father kept her from doing so by talking instead of her. "Hotaru, I think Sets just wants to eat. He had a long ride, just leave him for dinner." Hotaru gave in and attended to her soup and bread. Sets smiled shortly to Hotar and did as Hotaru.

After the meal the two eldest sons of Hotar went directly to their beds. They apologized that they would have to rise pretty early the next day.

"Haruka? Would you come with us?" Hotar smiled at the only blonde at the table. Sets stood already in the door to leave. Haruka nodded, looked to the rest of the family and then followed the two of them out of the dining room to the same guest room which was used by the same green haired man 53 years ago. Haruka just stood there watching Sets sitting on the only stool. Hotar closed the door and passed the blonde to sit on the bed.

"Why now?" Teal eyes looked disbelieving, red and purple ones searching for them. "53 years I just lived here. Then out of nothing my father tells me about an amulet and that I have to leave when I get it and at the day I get it, my former life-saver appears out of nowhere."

They stared at each other silently, when finally Hotar spoke with a steady voice. "We didn't know when it would happen. The only thing we knew was to wait for the sign."

"What sign?"

Hotar shook lightly his head. "First we didn't know what to do with you. Perhaps wait till your body was old enough to handle a sword for a fight, which is a coincidence that you are now. But then Hotaru was born. Something gotten into her the day she turned six. She was playing with dolls. A prince and a princess. I stood behind her, when her eyes turned dark purple and an serious voice just said without feelings: Don't look back. Wait for the sign."

_Don't look back._

"She's definitely gifted." Sets scratched his chin. "But she cannot control it yet and she doesn't remember anything of her visions not even that she had one." Red eyes turned to the purple of Hotar.

Hotar nodded approving. "Four days ago Arat returned from our family in Uran who's living in the depths of the same Black Forest as here. He went there on peaceable purpose, but he had to use his sword to get to our family. War has broken out in Uran. Rebels were born by the rouse of unknown soldiers. Randomly they destroy villages in the South. Nepta sent troops to oppress them. But there are still dark creatures marching through the Black Forest." The black haired man looked worried. "So, Hotaru and I greeted Arat, when he came back and the moment she saw her brother she squeezed my hand and just said with the same voice she had at the other vision: It's time for the prince to be king."

Haruka shook her head incomprehensibly. "What does it mean that you say the same voice? Isn't it the same as Hotaru always has with visions?"

Hotar shook vehemently his head. He was badly worried about his daughter having visions like this and said concerned. "No. The other visions are just visions. I mean she stays the same. But the visions she had with her telling us about the sign and the prince to be king she wasn't just this girl. Her eyes darkened I haven't seen it before happening to her. It remembers me more of obsessed people I've seen. Somebody was talking through her to me!" His hands lifted to his face to comfort it. "Haruka, I fear for Hotaru and her life. Most of these obsessed people I've known were killed by the person who was taking them and the others went crazy. Only a few survived it without harm."

Sets got up to sit next to Hotar. "Hotaru won't die, Hotar! I feel certain about that. And if it's not, I will make sure that she's gonna be alright." He was serious about it you could hear and Hotar trusted him nodding.

"Hotaru?" A barely audible whisper. Haruka was shocked. She wanted it all to be a joke. But there sat her father she trusted more than anyone else and she knew from his expression he's telling the truth. She felt a lump in her throat. _Hotaru_. She wanted to protect her sister. _But how could I, if I have to leave?_ "Why do I have to leave?"

"Haruka." Red eyes looked up. "You were chosen by the amulet. And the amulet belongs to the kingdom of Uran. That's why it has to go back. That's why you have to go back. That's why we have to go back." Sets pointed first at Haruka and Hotar and than at himself. "We are the only ones able to change the situation in Uran and we are Uranians. It's our duty to serve for the better of our home country. Our time has come to leave."

And with that Haruka had to leave them alone. Hotar and Sets wanted to discuss their journey and the blonde should rest, because they wanted to leave as early as possible. But she couldn't find sleep. There was something going on they didn't tell her. She was sure about it. She darted the dark ceiling of her room whilst playing with the amulet. "It's all so illogical." And in the next moment the amulet slipped off her fingers and fell to the ground. Haruka eyed it. The room was totally dark, but she could clearly see the amulet. The stone glimmered.

"Why did you choose me?"

-ö-

_Smoke. She smelled it. She saw it. She tasted it. All was burning._

_She was running hearing her own voice calling for a name. She got by crowds of people. A man called after her, but she didn't mind. She didn't mind to pass men in swordfights and she didn't mind going past her men dying. She didn't mind anything except her._

_The woman she loved. _

_There she stood. Her aqua hair waving in the wind of the fire. Her blue eyes were sparkling in the light._

_Don't look back!_

Teal eyes shot open. She sweated and her nightshirt cleaved to her body. Haruka leaned over and looked outside the window to see if it's already time to get up. However it was still dark outside but for all that her room was almost fully lightened. She searched for the source of the light and found the amulet on the floor.

Haruka got up and took it. A light breeze surrounded her body. She examined the stone which glowed so bad that it looked like daylight illuminating the chamber.

_There was definitely a connection between her dream and the amulet. No. Between HER and the amulet._

"What do you want to tell me?" She whispered not expecting any response.

"You can feel the wind like the prince of the kingdom of the sky." The sudden sound of a dark sounding but strange familiar voice made the blonde to turn immediately. There stood Hotaru in the corner behind her bed hidden by the dark surroundings there.

"Hotaru? How did you get…?" Haruka saw the dark purple eyes and remembered Hotars words. _She is obsessed._

"She can feel the waves of the ocean. She is the princess of the sea." She said steady without emotions.

"Hotaru!" Haruka spoke under her breath and did a step towards the little girl. She had a dark aura which frightened the blonde to death. She never seen her sister like this. She looked like a stiff puppet. The eyes empty. Haruka just wanted to take her in her arms and comfort her.

"But the sea is dark and you don't know what to find there. Betrayal will be unseen…"

Four steps more and Haruka was embracing her little sister. "Hotaru!" She susurrated in the little girl ear.

"Haruka?" Dark eyes turned into bright purple ones. The little body relaxed but her voice sounded afraid. "Haruka!" She squeezed the blonde as hard as possible with tears in her eyes.

"Shhhh. It's alright. Nothing happened." Haruka lifted her carrying her to the bed and put her on it. She covered her with the blanket and caressed her.

"Haruka?" Purple eyes looked into teal ones. The old too familiar voice of Hotaru sounded. "The sky loves the sea and the sea loves the sky. She would never betray her prince!"

The blonde brushed a tear on Hotarus cheek aside and smiled a little. "You remember." And with that her sister fell asleep remembering for the first time a vision.

Haruka sat next to her caressing Hotaru and thinking about the words she said when the blonde finally joined her to the other world.

-ö-

When the rays of the sun broke through the window and fully illuminated the chamber Haruka's eyes opened slowly. They scanned spacy the surroundings. Then she felt the amulet in her hand.

She was lying on the bed.

Alone.

-ö-

The next chapter is already in progress... ;-)


	4. 3: Departure

_**Only one life with you.**_

_**So here it is: Chapter 4. I needed a little longer this time and I think it will be the same for the other chapters because it gets harder and harder to write and to don't disorder the whole story.**_

_**I'm sorry for my narrowed vocabulary, so don't be discouraged.**_

_**Read and Review please.** :-)_

**Departure.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

When the rays of the sun broke through the window and fully illuminated the chamber Haruka's eyes opened slowly. They scanned spacy the surroundings. Then she felt the amulet in her hand.

She was lying on the bed.

Alone.

Somebody knocked at her door and opened it merely seconds after the knock without waiting for a response. Purple eyes searched for green ones. "Haruka? Bunch your most important stuff. We're leaving."

The blonde could only nod before saying something because in the next moment Hotar left her alone. _That's it. I have to go. _She donned her dark brown shirt, pants and leather tunic. _Her most important stuff. _She opened her closet which was full of pants and tunics. There she took one copy of her actual clothes for reserve and packed it in a brown traveling bag. Then her hand stretched forward behind the clothes in the closet and found a sword in its sheath. She took the amulet, bagged it and clung the sack at the belt as well as the sword. She grabbed for the bow and arrow and donned them around her torso. Then she did a second grasp behind the clothes and found a white foulard. _The foulard she was wearing because Sets took it from her mother and clothed her with it when she was just a newborn._ She sniffed at it, but it only smelled like her other clothes smacked of the wood of her closet. Then she just raveled it and packed it in her traveling bag.

She took her heavy and long dark brown travelling cloak from the stool and with that she took a last look of her chamber. Some moments later Haruka was leaving for good.

In the kitchen she ate some bread whilst the others were already waiting for her in the barn.

"Haruka?" There stood her mother and Eike, one of the younger brothers. Mila spoke calm but with power. "My little daughter…"

"Mother, it's a journey like any other I did before. Don't be frightened." Haruka embraced her mother and brother briefly. "As always we will see each other again." The mother nodded and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

Eike did the same. "Farewell my sister." And all was said.

In the barn she found her father, Arat and Hotaru waiting for her ready to leave with their cloaks on and armed.

_Hotaru! _She remembered the events of the night, but the memory of being alone in her room after waking up made her think whether it was a dream or reality. At the sight of Hotarus traveling cloak she snapped out of her reverie._ Was she accompanying them?_ Haruka was visible shocked about the thought.

Hotaru just needed to read her face and nodded. "I'm coming along with you." She smiled. "Father always told me about our relatives in Uran and how powerful they are. They could help me with my visions." She twinkled with the eye and ran like the little girl her body was joyfully to the horses.

Hotar grinned at Haruka. "Sets was already going in the middle of the night. With him are your two oldest brothers. They will make sure, that we will have a calm trip and wait for us in Freiburg where my brother and his family is living." He sounded confident about their journey and knocked on Harukas shoulders half embracing her and drawing her to the horses. There Haruka recognized the missing black one. "Come on let's start our journey as early as possible, more than ever when we need three days, because we have a human with us." Haruka looked surprised up to purple eyes which sparkled with delight. "Oh you didn't know? I've seen at the break of dawn that a blond tuft is hanging around in front of our barn waiting for us to leave."

_Blonde? _Haruka thought in a moment of Yuki, because she couldn't imagine Usagi going with her.

They saddled their horses and walked out of the barn directing them. And there Haruka saw the blonde tuft and she got surprised because it was Usagi in full traveling clothes on her black horse. "I couldn't let you go by yourself. That's why I have to escort you." She smirked brightly.

Haruka joined her and mouthed a thank you thinking about the numerous adventures with Usagi, Yuki, Koren and Makoto. And now only Usagi was left of her family. She knew the long haired blonde wasn't the best of them in fighting, but her heart was in the right place and they would have plenty of fun together because the she was pretty comical and clumsy.

They jumped up on their horses. Arat took Hotaru with him on his brown horse and sat her in front of him. She looked tired that was strange for _Ewige _(eternities). _Maybe she had visions all the night._ Arat directed his horse next to Haruka and tapped her on the shoulder whispered only for the blonde audible. "Especially with that kind of human we will need longer than long." He winked to the rider on the white horse smiling.

Haruka joined his gladness and giggled. She knew they were right about humans and that the eternities are special. They need a fraction of the humans sleep, they heal faster, they are more powerful and more skilled in every sense a human could ever be. And they are light. As a long living one she was almost as them, but would never reach one of them. She smiled remembering Hotar telling her with a convinced and serious voice that someday she would be even more powerful than anyone of the _Ewige _and added casually with a wink that she got only to train strictly. That was the time when she was a little girl and had everything except training on her mind because she couldn't believe him when she compared herself with them and still couldn't. The blonde recalled a time when they were constant in Freiburg the city of the Neptain eternities. She even lived there a short period to advance her senses and skills, but what she learned most was to succumb. Then there was one time their differences were highly visible in a normal journey when Arat, Koren and her were walking in the mountains on snow. Arat was walking on it barely touching the snow, while she was about to sink in some centimeters and had her differences to get along. But Koren sank almost half a meter in it and even had to return. She knew there was a legend about some eternities who they said could also walk on water. But this difference would never be bridgeable and that's why they would need that long to the _Ewige Stadt_. Without Usagi they would probably be in Freiburg about tomorrow, because the horses would ran with a low burden and they wouldn't need to sleep that long. Nevertheless Haruka was glad, because she liked the fact that Usagi would accompany them.

"Let's go then." Hotar commanded driving his horse on. And with that everybody followed him through Momend in the Black Forest.

.

The first day went by uneventful. Sets and the two brothers had done their job really good. Haruka and Hotar were ahead of the group gathering the track of the horses of them finding one time a small incident. There were footprints next to the hoofed prints. They were five men probably civilians who got lost at the southern Black Forest border of Uran and Plut because it didn't look like a fight and their ways parted peacefully in different directions.

It was shortly after sunset when they prepared their beds under a hardly visible clear night sky. Most of it was concealed by the tall trees.

Haruka's eyes examined the forest surrounding her from the roots up to the tree tops. Usagi was already snoring and tossed and turned. Hotaru sat next to her sister at the fireplace. Their father and brother went in the forest to look for some more wood.

Haruka wanted to ask Hotaru about last night when she already began to speak by herself reading the blondes mind. "Yes, I was sleeping in your room. You didn't dream it." Both watched the fire and how it played with the wood. "That's the first vision I ever remembered. I've seen a clear sky and a wide calm sea in which a pair stood: The prince of the sky with blonde hair like yours and the princess of the sea with aqua ones like her element." Harukas teal orbs squinted. Again the blue haired woman? "I witnessed their immortal love." Purple and green eyes locked. "Haruka. The sky and the sea love each other. They need each other. The sea could never betray the sky, because she would die herself without him." The black haired girl grabbed for the blondes hand. "I've got the feeling that you have to know this and that's why I'm able to remember this vision and that's why I'm accompanying you. I want to be in your vicinity if I would have another sweven to tell you. So I went to our father before you woke up and asked him if I could come with you to Freiburg to study there with my cousins. I didn't told him yet that I remember my first vision."

"Why didn't you?" Haruka lifted an eyebrow. It was not normal for one of Hotars children to keep something secret from their father especially her gifted sister told him everything just to have one of his experienced advices.

"You know, I didn't know how I got to your place. It was the same blackout I had two times before. Dad never told me what it was and I never asked about it. I'm sure he wants to guard me from something what happened to me." She sighed and spoke in some way being peeved at herself for being useless not remembering something of what happened. "How can I be gifted if I don't remember anything of it. I only know the presence of something dark surrounding me." Her purple eyes got concerned. "When I went to father he was talking to Marek, Björn and Sets when I felt shortly but intensely the same dark presence there in the red eyes of Sets." The little girl shivered feeling Haruka embracing her. "I felt threatened and obsessive and just couldn't talk about my vision."

The big sister nodded and swallowed hard. It sounded all so serious her sister said: about Sets, the sea and the sky. She didn't feel something about Sets, maybe her sister was peeved at the green haired man to be that contradictory. Then she remembered Hotarus obsession and her opposite declaration. _But the sea is dark and you don't know what to find there. Betrayal will be unseen. _Haruka had to tell her what she told her obsessed. "Hotaru, when you went in my room you were…." Her voice stopped abruptly feeling a presence of somebody, but she wasn't surprised to see Arat and Hotar coming back with lots of wood.

.

"_Haruka!" A child's voice sounded. "Haruka!"_

_Finally the little girl looked around to scan her surroundings. She stood at the beach facing a wide sea, her blonde short hair blew with the wind. "Where are you?" She screamed and walked slowly towards the sea. She was sure the voice came from that direction. _

_The blonde didn't mind to wet her long white pants and brown boots and did one step after another till the water reached her belly. The sea was freezing and she felt Goosebumps forming on her skin. She looked around feeling a presence but couldn't see anybody. She was just about to turn when two arms wrapped around her from behind._

"_Haruka!" The girl behind her exclaimed seeing the blonde freezing. It was the same voice who called her before. "Your clothes are wet and the water is cold. You shouldn't got into the sea in the first place. You will shiver to death!"_

_The tall girl turned around. Teal eyes meet deep blue ones who looked concerned. Wet hairs tossed like the wind and the waves. They had a special color: Aqua. The two girls looked like the same age. They were about six years old. Haruka was examining her friend, her white plashy undergarment glued at her body like a second skin which didn't show any sign of being cold. _

_Haruka smirked and said proudly. "As long as you don't freeze I don't freeze either!"_

_An aqua eyebrow lifted elegantly. "So? If that's the case…" And in the next morning the girl splashed water directly on the taller girl making her still dry clothes and hair wet. _

"_Hey. Stop." Haruka bellowed and tried to defend herself splashing too. _

_Both had their fun and laughed at each other unto the moment the blonde stopped suddenly highly shivering. The aquanette discontinued when she saw the girl in front of her vibrating. "See as I told you." She grabbed for the others hand and drew her to the beach. "Come on we will warm you up on the beach." _

_As they reached the sand Haruka removed all her clothes except her shorts watching her friend sitting down next to her in her knickers. They enjoyed the warmth of the grit and the sun. _

_The smaller girl took a hand full of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. "Haruka." She was focusing on the wavy sea. "You know I really like you a lot." _

_Haruka's eyes travelled into blue ones. "I like you too." _

_Both smiled._

Haruka's eyes slowly opened looking up to the dark treetops. She felt the presence of Arat sitting at the fireplace doing the night watch. The auras of the other eternities were at a minimum and told her that they were sleeping. Besides she could hear Usagi still snoring telling her that the only human slept as well. Opposite to Haruka and her family humans couldn't reduce their aura for sleep and protection. Humans were even for blind ones who know how to sense an aura highly visible.

She got up, walked over to Arat and tapped his shoulder. He wasn't surprised to see Haruka awake. He nodded and took the blanket the woman used just minutes ago as a bed.

Haruka watched the lights of the fire dancing on the trees around them feeling how Arat reduced his aura to a minimum.

The moment she was sure he wasn't awake any more she closed her eyes to repeat her dream several times till she came to the conclusion that it wasn't a dream at all.

It was a memory.

A memory of her own.

-ö-

The royal room was lit up by the light of the sun. Light blue and white walls were decorated by painted pictures of the sea and the sky. Only one was showing persons on it. It hung to the opposite wall of the bed. It was one of the darkest scenes in the room. A thundery dark sky and a unrested dark sea in the background. The front showed a dead man with blond hair in his royal uniform lying dead in the shallow water a mermaid embracing and peaking him on the cheek with a single tear running down her cheek. The woman had blue hair. - Author's note: (- The little mermaid; Studio Canopus; Yamada Mario /last side - http:/manga. animea. net/ sailor-moon-dj-the-little-mermaid-chapter-Oneshot-page-15. html) -

A young girl sat on a stool next to the window she leaned on with her elbow bearing her head with the back of her hand. A white simple but nevertheless expensive looking dress accented her perfect silky body. Her aqua hair hung loose on her shoulder. Her eyelids were closed. She just listened to the sounds of the crashing waves of the lake against the shore right in front of her windows. She needed it to relax. Her mind was spinning around since the day she had started to dream again about the old swevens she already had about fifty years ago. They mixed up with some new ones: Visions. And if they would not only steal her sleep, they were also present in wake station.

_The royal amulet of Uran. It's back to its true holder._

"Haruka? Are you really back?" She spoke under her breath only to herself. Then she opened her eyes. The deep blue ocean reflected in them with a sad impression. She stood up and walked to the commode directly under the painting of the dead man and the mermaid. She watched it carefully. Her eyes saddened even more. _Haruka._ She sighed. "I have to know."

A knock at the door broke into her reverie and ended it abruptly. A shy female voice sounded. "Milady?" The bluenette turned towards the door. "Come in." A young red-haired maid walked into the room. She made a curtsey watching her mistress. "Milady, Sir Kou would like to see you. He sent me after you. Milady?" The maid was confused, because her mistress didn't seem to listen instead she was watching abstractedly the painting. "Princess Michiru?" She asked again. Unwillingly the bluenette turned to the servant just to nod disinterested. "He asks for you. He's worried about your journey to Uran."

The royalty looked and spoke indifferent. "It shouldn't worry him. The rebels are in the south, but I will stay in the North and in the city. And besides it's not like this that I could die." No she couldn't. She was cursed to live forever. "Tell him that I will meet him at dinner. If there is something to talk about he can address me there."

"But milady, he was really…"

"And I'm also really serious about it. You may leave." Her face and voice were still indifferent but sounded a little bit thrilled. The maid nodded and excited knowing that her highness was out of sorts with the man who loved her onesided.

The princess eyes turned back to the painting. She didn't have any feelings for this man. _What does he think who he is?_ Her husband. But that's no right to control her especially not when she is the future queen and he would always be that lord she had to marry for political reasons. Why would nobody accept it like it is now? After all they got all what they wanted. The arranged marriage and an heir. Isn't this enough? How could they don't see that her heart is beating for someone else?

_For someone dead?_

She sighed. She had to know where the royal amulet of Uran is. Her delicate fingers scraped the commode and opened the center drawer. There she took out a highly decorated box. She opened the blue top slowly. Her eyes mirrored a shining gold. Her fingers and blue orbs wandered over a glimmering dark blue surface.

The amulet of Nepta.

**Alright, that's it. Don't forget to review.**


	5. 4: Traveling

**Here I am. If you discover something not really fitting (story, grammar, vocabulary, etc.) please tell me. I would like to improve.**

**For your information I took the Black Forest because I'm living in the North of it near Heidelberg. The brother's Grimm took their impressions of the dark dense forest to write their fairy storys. In the middle age it was one of the most angst-inducing forests in Europe, so that's why I took the name of it as well as some lakes and cities there. It's kind of the same geography like it is in the truth, but the distances and all that stuff is not the same. ;-)**

**Have fun reading this chapter.  
><strong>

**Traveling.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Dark and dangerous.

That's all she could think of for the last two days. The Black Forest was dense like no other forest she had ever seen before. With the rebels and their fights in the south it got even more dangerous and angst-inducing because they gather as groups in the wood robbing naïve traveler before they journey on to the city's to steal there and kill the army's people as well as civilians opposing them. How could they murder their own people in fact fighting for them? That's what they were at least: Civilians rising against their government to fight for a reason she didn't know yet gathering more and more of them. She had to see it with her own eyes, but first she had to get to _Lebenlang._

A woman in a grey cloak of which the hood hided her face looked up to the sky to prove that it was already dawn but she couldn't see any part of the ceiling. The only things she could view were the tall and endless trees that she had to guess. She was walking now about three hours and she knew that she left Donaueschingen three to four hours before dawn, so it could be anytime that it would brighten up, but nevertheless it was still dark that she had to direct her chestnut by the reins. But even if it would be light she could only ride him till the grand hills broke off and she would have to descend into the valley of Freiburg and of course only if the roads would be passable and she knew that the roads to and from Freiburg were hidden and accrued by tree roots and undergrowth for miles in the vicinity. It was a city not visible and secretly hidden to humans only reachable for _Ewige. _Only her senses made it possible to see the road to get there.

She floated over the soil without a lamp not visible and not audible to anyone. Only the hoofbeats of her horse were in evidence.

_-Flashback-_

_The princess didn't even think about going to dinner where her husband would be waiting for her. She asked for her two servants letting pack her carrying cases while the grooms arranged the horse-drawing carriages. She herself crept into her third maids' chamber only a few meters down the corridor. _

_The royal woman closed the door with a kick startling the young girl on the bed to look up into her mistress' eyes. She jumped up doing a curtsey. "My princess." The maid had the same hair and eye color as hers._

"_Lorelei. We will travel to the city of Uran." The princess noted her maid stiffening by mentioning the rebellious country and looked for the truth of her words in the royal eyes and finally found it in her serious expression. "Lorelei. You know what I'm here for?"_

_The attendant nodded and only asked. "When?"_

_Her mistress spoke serious. "We won't lose any time. As soon as everything is arranged the escorts and the other maids will hit the road." She walked over to the royal looking wooden box opposite to the bed and next to other cheap looking boxes. She opened it her maid not minding because it was nevertheless the royals' property the maid possessed because of the special orders she got._

_The attendant watched her future queen rummaging around for a traveling dress of royal class. She smiled because it didn't look like a behavior for a royalty at all._

_In the end a blue dress and a blue traveling cloak landed on the bed. "That should be fine, don't you think?" Their eyes examined the rich decorated clothes._

"_Yes, milady. It will definitely attract the attention being worthily for a royalty. They won't get the idea of escorting a simple servant." The young looking girl responded with a slight of fear in her voice._

"_Lorelei." The elder woman noticed her doubts and wanted to encourage her maid. "You will be escorted with the best men of the country and you will take a safe route avoiding the Black Forest passing the border at Heilbronn. That's far away from the rebellious regions." She put a hand on the attendants shoulder and smiled weakly sighing. "You know the game. Don't talk to anybody if not required and pull the cloaks hood far in your face. They know that I am angry about getting an escort because the queen and my husband ordered it and they know how I can be pouting." She twinkled. "They won't get it."_

"_Why does it bother you that you'll be escorted? What do you plan Michiru?"_

_Said woman looked up hearing her name and their eyes locked. Michiru smiled. She liked it to be talked to like normal people do and to be a part of the simple folk. Her life would have been so much easier to have a freewill. "I need to travel alone." She let her fingers glide over the royal blue dress remembering the last time she wore it by herself traveling as well to Uran. She knew she could trust Lorelei who was her double so many times before. She knew her since she was a baby and Michiru wasn't much older. Loreleis mother before her was as well her maid, but only Lorelei became a close friend of hers growing up with her and finally she committed her plans to the maid. "I have to go to Freiburg and meet there my cousin. I will cross the border there and will be in the city of Uran shortly before you and your escorts arrive there."_

_That said plan was satisfying for Lorelei knowing where her mistress would travel to, but though she sat there frozen and asked with a shaking voice. "You will travel through the Black Forest?" Her mouth stood open and Michiru just nodded. "But the rebels, if they get wind of the princess traveling alone and catch you they will…"_

"_You know that nothing will happen." Her voice was serious and confident satisfying every criticizer even without a real explanation but only a thesis. Then she added lighthearted watching the royal fabrics. "Come on, I'll help you with your dress…" She smiled, walked over to the box next to the royal one and took a grey gown and traveling cloak out showing it her maid and twinkled. "But only if you help me with mine."_

_With the aid of her friend she crept out of the castle into a certain horse stable where her chestnut rested. She made him ready, escaped through a secret gate to a hidden path in the cliff at the shore behind the castle and headed for the Black Forest in the distance._

_She had to know._

_-End of Flashback-_

As soon as the first sun rays broke through the small cuts of the trees to light up the forest the woman jumped up on her chestnut directing him out of the undergrowth on a free road for carriages where she urged him for a fast pace leaning over his neck and whispering in his ear. "Laufsch s'schnell d'goasch, Maritus." (Run as fast as you can, Maritus.)

The grey cloak blew in the wind. She had felt a familiar dark presence scurrying in the undergrowth spying its surroundings. She had followed the track and found some less powerful auras with him: _Ewige._ And in the next second they had vanished but it was still enough for her to know that they had been far off of her vicinity. Normally nobody would feel her simulated weak aura she created for travels. No one ever found her with mental powers except him. _Haruka._

Nevertheless she had to hurry, if she didn't want to have unexpected surprises. She wanted to be sure to arrive at Freiburg without any incident.

She first slowed down when she reached the open country, where farmers stubbed the forest to cultivate grains and fruit-trees. She passed dairy cows, pigs, chicken and other animals but bypassed any human kind she sensed.

The sun was still in its course of the day. The sky was clear and it became quiet warm.

When she reached a dark blue lake half in the forests in front of her she did the first rest period for that day. Her second day of traveling in total and it would be the last.

Maritus walked to the shore and drank from the water whilst a familiar feeling crept over the rider. She walked over to the water standing next to her horse. She felt the sea rage with her hidden deep emotions, empowering. Small waves built up and became higher and higher evicting the chestnut from the shore stepping back. The water level rose and she felt her boots and gown getting wet, but she did not move. Then her deep blue eyes widened mirroring the whole scenery at the sudden breeze circling her. She wasn't alone.

Her hood flew back and revealed her aqua curls dancing with the wind like the water did. _A lover's dance._

The two elements built up more and more power when she suddenly heard the sky whispering her name: _Michiru_.

_No, that can't be real._

The breeze caressed her cheek and her lips, getting into her whole being and fulfilling her mentally. There was only one person able to do this.

"Haruka…" she whispered of astonishment. Her eyes mirrored the picture of a beloved blond man dancing with her. _I will find you._

And in the next moment the wind was gone leaving the water alone. Her eyes filled up with melancholy a tear running down her creamy cheek feeling the sadness of the sea and how it slowly died down, as her powers left her.

_The king of the sky was still dead and the queen of the sea was alone once again._

.

After some hours she passed the border to the forest again and dismounted of Maritus when the path she traveled on made a turn in the wrong direction away from Freiburg. The forest became denser than before and the sun needed all its power to light the woods. The wild animals got less and less as well as the surrounding sounds till they died down. She directed the chestnut down into the valley. There she reached the invisible but nevertheless visible border to the magic forests of _Lebenlang_: the river _Dreisam. _

A rapid and torrential river full of spells was protecting the magic forests and Freiburg.

„So hell klingt mir des Flusses Lied,  
>lausch seinem alten Klange.<br>Seh wie`s aus seinen Noten blüht,  
>ein Bild das jeden Tag geschieht,<br>es plätschert leis vom Hange."

Michiru whispered the words her body tilting over the water. The flow retarded and sank the level for her to pass.

Birds began to fly and sing and the wild animals started to do their sounds again. It got more and more paradisiacal till she reached a large sea surrounded by hills and trees as well as white palatial houses climbing up the sheers and reaching into the sea. A big castle and a cloister with a temple were placed next to each other in the center of Freiburg where a big waterfall crushed in the lake.

-ö-

The breeze got wilder and wilder stirring up the lake she went to filling up her water pouches. She knew she stood in the water, it reaching up to her nude ankles but now she felt it cresting and wetting her tucked up pants. The waves started to empower and circle her and the wind joined them.

Besides the danger her body experienced, she felt how her heart and emotions started to feel a strange familiar warmth she couldn't explain.

"Come on, where are you?" Her hands splashed in the water searching for something and getting faster and faster feeling how the water is empowering.

Finally she grabbed it having trouble pulling the wet bag out of the lake and stepped back. "I thought you were safe at my waist belt."

She weighed the red sack throwing it from one and in the other hand and watched it carefully witnessing unintentionally how the sea and the sky calmed down.

"Weird!" She shook her head in disbelieve.

It was strange. It almost felt as if the amulet in the sack wanted to reach the water drawing her down to the knees till the mounting broke and it fell in the sea.

Then all of the sudden the wind and the water empowered encircling the bag and her.

She shook her head again, put on her boots and went back to the others directing straightly the other blonde showing her the empty water pouch. "Usagi. Do you mind filling up mine as well?"

The blonde girl shook her head, took the pouch and made her way to the lake Haruka went to before her eyes following her.

"Haruka." The blonde turned around to face Arat. "We got a message from Sets. They discovered a nest full of rebels at the Schluchsee."

"Schluchsee? But that's only a few miles from here!" She was shocked how near they were to the danger of meeting rebels, who probably would like to see them dead to steal them.

Arat nodded. "Father wants us to divert and pass the Feldberg descending into the valley of the Rhein and crossing the border to Uran there going north and finally arriving from the west in the forests of _Lebenlang_ and Freiburg."

Haruka brooded over the new plan furrowing her brows. "That would mean about two days plus, probably three because of the pass having still snow and we have…" she started to whisper. "…Usagi with us."

"We will reach Freiburg in three days. Don't worry about our little human girl. I passed the Feldberg just two weeks ago and the road was easy to go." Arat smiled. "The same for humans. It is summer Haruka, don't distress yourself."

He knocked her shoulder when suddenly Hotar arrived holding the hand of his smallest daughter. "Pack your stuff! There is something what got our track. We have to leave immediately." He said with a pushy voice.

"The rebels? But I thought…" Arat was cut short.

"Something dark is following us. I feel it gathering in the undergrowth, following and spying on us." Hotaru spoke distant and Haruka was thinking deeply about her sister having been obsessed again.

"We are not allowed to bring something we don't know with us to _Lebenlang._ That's why you will pass the Feldberg reducing your aura to nothing. I'll take Usagi with me the dark presence probably feels for miles. I guarantee you we will arrive in Freiburg tomorrow, even if I have to carry her the whole way. I sent already an eagle to Sets and your brothers, they will wait for us and if we didn't shake this thing off till then we will defeat it." Hotar explained and added. "The rebels are not our problem. Far from it. They have basically the same intentions as we have: to bring down the government of Uran and making an end to the civil war."

_Bringing down the government and ending the civil war?_ Haruka didn't know what Hotar was talking about.

The black haired man locked eyes with his eldest daughter telling her that she will understand everything when he would have the time to illustrate the whole story. He nodded reassuring and then commanded. "You three will go ahead right now! I will see for Usagi."

He headed for the sea leaving behind an astonished blonde, who got more and more confused. Nobody told her what it really was they were going to do. But now she knew that they really wanted to dump the Uranian government she didn't know anything about living for all her life in the village of Momend in Plut.

-ö-

"Princess Michiru." The young man with brown hair and eyes stood at the open gate of the white surrounding wall and greeted the grey cloaked rider going to the knees and taking her hand to kiss the ankles. "Lady Ami told me that you would come for a visit. It had been indeed too long the last time you spend here."

Michiru removed the hood freeing her aqua curls and revealing her serious face. She extended the reins of her chestnut to Taiki and passed him locking their eyes only for a brief moment. She definitely wasn't there for having a chat about his single sided love for her and especially not with her husband's brother who probably would tell him where she really was instead of traveling with the escort. "Where is Ami?" She asked pestering, didn't want to lose any time.

His shining eyes faded instantly when he realized that she was in a terrible hurry. He knew already that her feelings for him didn't change one bit in the time she hasn't been back in her native city, but she could at least making their whilom good friendship work. He sighed and simply took the reins she offered pointing her with his free arm and hand the way to her cousin.

The blue haired girl nodded. "Thank you." She felt how disappointed he was. Compassion rose in her, but she didn't want to make him believe that she ever would feel more than friendship for him.

She walked over to the castle. Her boots clinked stepping on the marmoreal slabs of the roads and public open spaces which were graced by white beautiful houses. People were walking around chatting and children were playing in the many brooks of the city as well as washerwoman made their laundry in it. Some eyes widened recognizing their Princess walking casually in public with servant's clothes and especially in the city she wasn't for decades. However a layman would distinguish her high class, the way she walked elegant and graciously. Her ivory skin and her royal blue hair and eyes accented her unique beauty.

"Milady." The many people who recognized her greeted her making a curtsey. She gave them a smile nodding her head greeting them. She passed them quickly scurrying through the next two surrounding walls of the castle leaving behind astonished guards. White marmoreal arcades and statutes decorated the palatial castle as well as many waterfalls graced the cliffs of the hill the castle was built on.

She loved her native city where her father's family came from and her aunt's family still lived. It was the most peaceful place she knew of, never experienced a war.

Guards opened for her the double wing door to the round gallery her ancestors once built. It was highly decorated with statutes and paintings of important events and persons of the _Ewige_. Water fell between the arcades and the artworks. A cupola made of glass flooded the big room with light where opposite to the door a throne and several other marmoreal noble chairs stood.

A girl with blue short hair was seated right in front of the painting of Michiru and her father watching it.

"Michiru!" Ami cheered standing up from one of the many chairs, her light blue dress waving. She She embraced the slightly taller girl, who was enjoyed meeting her cousin again. Anybody could see that they were relatives. Her hair color looked the same as Michirus, but her eyes were a lighter blue. "How long has it been?" She asked knowing already the answer.

Michiru smiled. "Don't forget that you visited me seven years ago in Hellesleben."

"Yes right, but you haven't been in the city of your birth for about what? Two decades?" Ami corrected her cousin when she joined her with a smile. She examined her from tip to toe suddenly discovering a glimmering golden necklace she wondered if it would be that certain necklace.

Michiru saw how the smile of Ami faded spotting her necklace. She stood still watching how her cousin's hand touched her hidden cleavage feeling for the amulet below the fabrics. Their eyes met, both looking serious. "I didn't know that you came for…" Ami began surprised shaking her head and then asked gravely. "For how long do you wear it already?"

Michiru ignored it. "Ami! I have to know where she is."

Her cousin just nodded knowingly not minding that she passed her question. "Your lucky, Setsuna is in town!" She slowly said observing Michirus eyes for her reaction.

_Setsuna. _Blue brows furrowed thinking about the green haired woman. Her friend.

"You have to ask her!"

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

**That's it. And as always I'm so in the flow that the beginning of the next chapter is already in progress.**

**Please, don't forget to review. I need some real feedback.**


	6. 5: Freiburg

**Ok, I decided** **to have a Setsuna as well. You know the first chapters I refused to have the normal characters and changed them into male, but I got my mind set up. **

**What else to say about this chapter? Oh yeah, I still don't know how to translate "Schloss" into english. It's not like a castle but also not only a mansion. But I hope you get the idea of how paradisiac** **all in Freiburg is. Almost like the real city.^^ So for now enjoy.**

**Freiburg.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Michiru didn't want to lose any time rushing to the cloister next to the castle her cousin following her. They passed nuns and monks in dark green, blue and some grey cloaks looking like hers.

"Lady Ami…" They whispered and added surprised and astonished when canting over. "Your highness, the Princess of Nepta…"

When the two of them arrived at the inner courtyard of the cloister Michiru instantly recognized her old friend in a dark green nun's dress. Her long green hair reached her waist at the back and her peaked ears dangled feeling someone familiar arriving from behind.

"Setsuna." Michiru exclaimed not caring about her royal behavior. The woman in the nun's gown was talking to a black haired human man who made a curtsey for the ladies when he recognized them and left afterwards.

The green cloaked woman turned around swinging her hair behind, her red eyes lighting up. "Princess Michiru." She bowed deeply a smile playing on her mouth.

"Don't you dare talking to me like that!" The blue haired princess said acting seriously but she smiled the second after and closed the gap between them embracing her old friend.

"You get more and more beautiful." Setsuna chuckled when they released their embrace to eye up each other. "Fifty years and you're still in your young twenties." Setsuna shook her head smiling from ear to ear. She knew that Michiru wouldn't pass the young twenties in the next ten millennia.

"I could say the same about you and your late twenties." Michiru twinkled. Indeed her green haired friend looked only some years older but her red eyes were speaking volumes of the wisdom she gathered living for millennia. How many she didn't exactly know. She remembered her mother telling her centuries ago about the oldest of the left _Ewige_ in Nepta knowing her only as an adult. That would mean that Setsuna is perhaps the oldest living one in the world of Nepta but still looked that young. Michiru shook her head. _What would make her stay here for so long and not going to the Ewigenlande where all the wise and old Ewige of her folk went to?_

She sighed and added seriously forgetting about the nuns and monks around them. "Setsuna, I would…"

But her old friend cut in knowingly. "Follow me to a quieter place."

.

Ami closed the door behind them sitting next to Setsuna at the end of the long table opposite to Michiru. The room was meant for conferences, long drawn-out and light flooded.

"Where is she?" Michiru didn't want to beat around the bush her blue eyes jumping from red ones to blue ones and back.

"She's living in Heidelberg. She is the daughter of the duke and duchess of Odenwald."

The green haired woman stopped hearing Michiru coughing when she mentioned the princess' oldest brother. She hadn't seen him for a century being damned to live as a duke clearing the way for his youngest sister not even a quarter as old as him.

"Does he know who she is?" Setsuna just nodded. "I have to go there!" She exclaimed and with that the bluenette stood and turned to go.

Setsuna grabbed her hand and switched her around. "Michiru! She's fine. Believe me. I kept an eye on her seeing how your brother learnt to love her." She smiled. "She's getting as pretty as her mother."

Michiru sighed reluctantly believing Setsuna's words. "What's her name?"

-ö-

_There she stood. Her aqua hair waving in the wind of the fire. Her blue eyes were sparkling in the light._

_Don't look back!_

_Why?_

"_Haruka!" The cry was the last thing she heard._

All went white.

Haruka slowly opened her eyes focusing the two full moons of the clear sky directly above her. They had passed the Feldberg the day before and were now descending into the valley. It was the last night they rested in the open only meters from the forest limit in the mountains.

_It was the same dream again. _The blonde sighed.

"The princess of the sea, she has got aqua hair." Haruka's eyelids closed remembering the long blue curls of the girl and woman in her dreams. Her head turned to the right, when she opened them again facing Hotaru's silhouette. Her sister's eyes were closed when she added barely audible. "Her beauty is mirroring in the water she's standing in up to her belly, her grey nightgown fully soaked. She's trembling but it's not because of the cold lake. No. The water tries to calm her, to comfort and caress for her feeling the bluenette's salty tears dropping into it. She's crying, begging the sea for drowning her. But she refuses." Hotaru flipped over, purple orbs meeting green ones. "I can feel her pain of losing the man she loved most: The prince of the sky." She sighed and shook her head lightly breaking the eye contact.

"Can you see what I see?" The blonde knew that Hotaru knew of her dreams, especially the one she's having almost every night if she's not experiencing another dream of the aquanette and her. They had interchanged every minute Arat left them alone excluding him knowingly that he wouldn't understand.

"I see and remember what I'm meant to see and to remember." Their eyes searched for each other. "I do not dream the way you do Haruka. You are re-experiencing hidden memories of your past lifes I could never be able to see if I'm not meant to. The recollection belongs to you and the person who witnessed them."

"My past lifes?" Haruka asked confused but somewhere deep inside her she knew it already. She dreamt of long forgotten memories somewhere hidden in her being, bringing them back to life. Memories of her past lives.

Hotaru nodded. "I thought about your dreams and I am almost sure about that fact and that the amulet has something to do with it." Her fingers pointed to the red sack in the hand of Haruka. "It looks to me, that it is somehow a key to your past lives: To your soul." The little girl turned around shutting her eyes. "I will go and read in the old libraries of Freiburg. They have plenty of books contenting reincarnation. But for now…" She faked a yawn knowing that _Ewige_ would never gape in hundred sleepless nights. "Go back and find some sleep Haruka. We will reach the city tomorrow and solve the questions there."

_Reincarnation_. And with that thought she fell asleep.

_She stood at the window watching the familiar surroundings. The walls were a creamy white polished marble. Water fell of the cliffs. A green dense forest belted a large lake and a white city. _

_Freiburg. _

_Her eyes were scanning the inner yard of the mansion. A small girl looking like a ten year old sat at a fountain staring in the water watching for the fishes. Her blue hair danced with the wind created by the observer._

_The blonde woman sighed sadly and leaned her hand against the glass of the window longing for the little aquanette._

"_Haruka." A comforting male voice resonated and positioned to the right of her at the window watching shortly for the little girl when finally facing the blonde woman. "You may store her in your heart, but she is not meant to be there." Haruka reluctantly turned around locking green eyes with blue ones. "Haruka, I'm soliciting you to leave her behind. She's too young not able to respond your feelings."_

_The blonde shook her head disbelieving and stated. "She is even older than I am! We are destined to be together and you know that!" She grabbed the amulet hanging like a necklace around her neck._

_The blue haired man in his late twenties eyes shortly reflected the golden amulet. He was obviously the small girls father. "No. You are not!" He explained calmly with a serious and deep voice wagging his head. "She may be older than you are. But you may look at you. You're appearance is even older than mine and now look at her." Haruka turned to see the aquanette who was now standing in the fountain drenching her blue dress and stretching her arms to feel the breezes surrounding her. Her father furrowed his brows watching every move the blonde made. "She may be thrice your age in life time but she still looks like a twelve year old girl. And that's why she can't be your soul mate Haruka. You are half human. She is Ewig. She will never turn older than a young teen whilst your lifetime expires." Tears ran down her suntanned cheek. She felt his hand putted on her right shoulder. "Please, Haruka forget about her and leave her for good. Let her live a fulfilled life with her folk."_

_The blondes hand lifted one last time to the window knowing he was right. Her eyes shut and a last tear made her way down the skin. She felt how the breezes around the small girl died down her power leaving them. And with that she let her go. _

_She turned making a rushed curtsey. "Your Majesty." And with these last words she left._

Haruka knew she cried in sleep when she found her face hot and wet waking up. She could feel the sad emotions rise in her when she remembered that memory.

-ö-

_The blondes hand lifted one last time to the window knowing he was right. Her eyes shut and a last tear made her way down the skin. She felt how the breezes around the small girl died down her power leaving them. And with that she let her go. _

_She turned making a rushed curtsey. "Your Majesty." And with these last words she left.. _

_And with that she left her behind, never seeing how the aquanette turned around looking to the window feeling how the wind just had left her._

"…she never had seen how the small girl felt that she was left by her dearest friend." Michiru shook her head and her eyes watered. She never heard that story before, but she always requested why Haruka left her that long time ago. "I can still feel how I stood in the fountain, my element surrounding me and the breezes she sent me like all the time she did when she was near. I liked that feeling to be encircled by the sky and the sea." She sighed. "I still do. But I didn't know yet that this feeling was some kind of love." Her sadness grew the moment she thought about the blonde who must have felt an unbearable loose like she did all the time she lost her beloved Haruka.

"It's not your fault Michiru. You didn't know in that moment that you were in love with your friend, a woman on top of that." Setsuna tried to set her up.

_When the door closed behind the blonde a green-haired woman stepped out of the shadows. The blue haired man locked back. "You know that all I wanted is to protect my daughter."_

_Setsuna nodded. "I know. But you can't lock her away like that forever. They are destined…"_

"_They are not!" The man insisted with an angry voice. He closed his eyes taking a deep breath when he added more calmly almost like a whisper. "They are not!"_

"_Gabriel of Lebenlang!" The green haired woman sounded serious. "The two of them are meant to be together, to bring peace to this world…"_

"_The humans world. It's not the place where we are meant to be and I don't want to leave my daughter here behind. She is an eternity and what is the heir of Uran? Sometimes human, sometimes a half-breed. He will never live as long as her and I don't want my daughter to see her love die thousands of time. It would break her probably searching after the first time it happens for her own death. I want to protect her from that feeling of losing her heart." He stated his majestic composure fading word by word._

"_But instead you made Haruka feel the loose of her heart and prevented your own flesh and blood to not even meet her soul mate knowing for sure that an Ewige could never find real happiness without her destined partner. How selfish you are, King of Nepta." Setsuna turned making a step towards the door the blonde went through just minutes ago. "I will guarantee you that they will meet. But for this time I will forgive you knowing that Michiru doesn't know that she already feels love. However Michiru is an intelligent girl feeling right in this moment that a part of heart left her and she will be someday curious enough to break out of the golden cage searching the person who her heart belongs to and meet her soul mate again. The prince of the Sky and the princess of the Sea will always love each other. And the next time they meet you can't prevent it."_

_And with that the green-haired woman disappeared following the heir of Uran._

Michiru scanned every inch of her father on the painting of him and hers in the round gallery. Her fingers traced over the face of Gabriel.

"He just wanted to protect you so much from getting hurt by any harm that he didn't realize that he was excluding you from being really happy." Setsuna stepped closer to the bluenette. "He loved you very much."

"I know." Was the respond barely audible. "Thank you for sharing your memory with me Setsuna." She turned to connect blue orbs with red ones smiling with a fake composure. "I would like you to share more of your memories when we set out for Heidelberg. But for now you may tell Ami that we will stay for two more days."

The green-haired woman nodded passing the other girl to leave.

"Setsuna? I asked for her because I felt the Sky reviving the way only she did." Michiru stated._ Do you know if Haruka is back?_

"I thought so. And yes, I think that Haruka is back." _But I don't know whether male or female and how old he would be._

"Thank you."

Setsuna closed the double door behind her.

Michiru had dreamt of her old friend and thought about her the way she caressed her with breezes remembering especially the last time she felt it before she left for good. But it wasn't the last time in her life. The prince of the sky caressed her also like that. But when she felt the breezes at the lake in the Black Forest just a day ago she felt definitely the same kind of breezes her female friend did hundreds of years ago.

The memory of her leaving Michiru behind made her curious and she wanted to know. That's why she asked Setsuna to share her memory knowing that the green haired woman was in the room when Haruka left.

She sighed making her way out of the round gallery to the great lake of Freiburg.

She would find her Haruka again, but first she wanted to depart to Heidelberg and look after _her_.

-ö-

"Usagi. You're here for two days and you already fell in love with some guy called Mamoru?" Haruka chuckled. "I shouldn't let you go with my father. He probably told you the story of Freiburg where all the people going there find their soul mate or in your case the big love and you can feel the love at first sight." She laughed harder when Usagi beat her arm. She had been to Freiburg a lot of times as well as her brothers and nobody crossed a spark of love except her oldest brother.

"It's not funny. It's… Mamoru!" They were walking around a corner when they spotted a black haired human man. Usagi ran to him and they embraced kissing each other.

Haruka choked seeing the two lovesick birds caressing each other. Instantly the city didn't smell like roses any more like it always did. She shook her head. _She's the first time in Freiburg and finds at the first day a black haired guy who likes her as well. Impossible._ Disgustedly she turned around being digressed from the sight of the two and walked back the narrow street.

"Haruka, you didn't even love her." Arat appeared in the shadows of the white buildings. "So don't be jealous. Be happy for her. That's the best you can do." He lightly punched her shoulder encouragingly. The blonde thought about it shortly. Perhaps she loved her and didn't know it by now? "No, it's just your ego. You and your faith in being irresistible for any girl or woman crossing your way. You know that she loves you…" He chuckled. "…_loved_ you till yesterday when she found someone who she loved more." Arat twinkled. This time Haruka punched her brother.

_But he is right. _She winked with her hand. "You're only jealous because you're not loved the way I am." The blonde smirked passing Arat who suddenly stopped in track. She turned to see what he was doing with a questioning look. Their eyes locked.

Then he spoke seriously. "I don't want to be loved by many women. I don't want to love many women. I wouldn't like to lose just one of them. I want to love and be loved only by one: My soulmate…"

Harukas smile faded. She closed the distance to her brother looking in the same tall man's eyes. "I would love to be like you _Ewige_. To have one soulmate." She got sad. "But unfortunately I am more human than eternity. I will never feel the emotions and accomplished love you are able to feel. I can only imagine a part of its wholeness. I am not allowed to love somebody like that."

Arat's eyes glimmered. He put his hands on her shoulders. "I am sure that my sister will have the same fate like her brothers and Hotaru: To feel the purest and deepest emotions of true love."

.

Haruka did the only thing she could do to calm down her emotions.

She ran.

She ran through the forests of _Lebenlang_ behind the big lake of Freiburg.

_How could she ever believed in true love she had only seen and lived with being raised by Ewige_. _Not Ewiger. Not human. Something in between. Something not being part of anything. An outsider. Not being able to love and be loved. It's impossible for her experiencing true love._

She rose her speed. She wanted to run away from her being.

_You are gifted._ She could hear Hotar practically talking to her in mind. _Strong_ as the sky. _Fast as the wind. One day you will be more like nobody of the Ewige or any other race could ever be._

She stopped suddenly falling to her knees equalizing the kinetic power she had had.

_One day._

She rose to her feet.

She remembered the feeling of being strong as the sky and fast as the wind. She remembered the seconds of feeling the power. _The power of the amulet. _She intuitively grabbed for the red sack feeling the shape of the amulet behind the royal fabrics.

_Don't look back._

But she did.

Haruka turned around. She felt something being behind her. Someone.

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

**So that's it. I hope you liked it and review.**

**So and Setsuna looks like being pretty old. But she has to be if she's the guardian of time right?  
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**For all the questions of when Haruka is meeting Michiru I can guarantee you, that it will happen the next chapter I'm already writing.**

**But I have also to say, that the next chapter needs more time than the others, because I have to move tomorrow to a new city and then I have to learn for exams and all the stuff. I calculate for a month, but I hope I get the next chapter done in less than that.**

**Please R&R**


	7. 6: The Lake

**So here I am again. I'm so sorry for the delay, but I have to say it won't get better the next three months. My head is so full of the stuff I have to learn right now for exams. I'm really sorry for that. But I will definitely continue, because I know already the end. ;-)  
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**So, this time I have the first encounter of Haruka and Michiru. Enjoy it and I beg for feedback. ;-)  
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* * *

><p><strong>The Lake.<strong>

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

"My princess, would you like to have an escort?" A highly armored guard stood watch at the small gate to the forests surrounding Freiburg. On his chest was the emblem of _Lebenlang_ and Nepta showing their inseparable connection. Being a member of the royal family of Nepta meant automatically being a member of the royal family reigning all of the _Ewige_. Every eternity living in Nepta (here it is the world Nepta not the state Nepta ;-)) and in _Ewigenleben_ was obligated to Michiru and her family.

"That won't be necessary." And with that she slipped through the small gate passing the great lake of Freiburg and making her way through the forests of _Lebenlang_ to her little paradise. The lake where she met the prince of Uran for the first time hundreds of years after her best friend Haruka had left her because of her father's words. But he was fully human.

She took a deep breath smelling the many odors of the forest, especially the wood and the grasses leaving behind the aroma of roses in the city. The sounds of the waterfalls purling into the great lake faded slowly the farther she distanced from Freiburg till they finally died down.

She enjoyed the feeling of being a part of her surroundings slowly making her way through the undergrowth sensing the soft and soaked soil walking barefoot.

After an hour of walk she reached her goal behind a mountain hiding the last visible part of Freiburg to her. There it was, a small blue-green lake, half hidden by large stones of the mountain and the other half by the large trees. One little waterfall fell through the moss-covered rocks.

Michiru didn't know if somebody except her and Haruka have ever been to this well hidden place it was. It looked all untouched and virginal. The woods of _Lebenlang _were in every aspect safer than the Black Forest around them. Nevertheless would nobody go voluntary that near to the border of the normal Black Forest she was now. The place was safe but something up in the mountains made people afraid of going there. They stood more near the wood's city.

The bluenette knew she was alone.

It was her small heaven in Nepta.

-ö-

_Don't look back._

But she did.

Haruka turned around. She felt something being behind her. Someone.

She eavesdropped to the surrounding noises carefully hearing the ripple of water nearby.

She followed the sounds precautiously knowing that she will find the presence there. She moved slowly watching her feet for every step and scanning the soil to avoid noises at all. She caught her heavy breath from running and slowly reduced her aura.

She realized that she ran farther than she ever had done before. She had to be near the border to the Black Forest.

_Did I leave Lebenlang already?_ _But that couldn't happen without feeling the loss of the magic surrounding the city and woods of Freiburg. But the aura she felt was weak, like a human and how would a human have access to the magic forests? Or could it be, that an Ewige would be able to reduce his power that much, that he looked like a normal human and could he probably felt that there's somebody close by? _Haruka's mind was spinning and adrenaline rose in her blood. She didn't know why, because eternities are normally friendly people not wanting to be involved in profanely wars. But something made her curious.

She slowly sneaked up seeing how the woods cleared up till she found herself standing on a cliff of a small lake.

Now she could feel the presence really close by and she scanned the surroundings of the lake, the woods, the rocks and finally the water itself. But she couldn't see anybody which could be the aura she felt that close. She kept moving to the edge of the crag, panic rising in her. Her hand automatically grasped for her sword, which wasn't at the belt.

She stopped in track few inches from the brink. She would have only the amulet; her fingers were already wandering to the familiar fabric and taking it into her fist.

Now at the edge, the overhanging rock released the view to the water five meters right below her.

Her eyes widened at the sight.

.

Her sleeveless white dress covered barely her knees giving a good view of the well-formed long legs and accented her handsome body perfectly.

Michiru walked to the shore sensing the waving water crushing against her feet. She did a small crosscheck that she would be alone and no one unwanted would see her and her small secret.

For her next step she concentrated on her element, the surroundings blurred her body and feelings sensing only the water.

_Dragsch me. _Her mind talked to the lake and with her next move she stood on the water which calmed down to a smooth surface.

She shut her eyes slowly taking step by step having only her blue element on her mind. The bluenette headed automatically to the rocks in the lake near the cliffs where she more than thousand years ago rescued the prince of the sky from drowning and met him for the first time. The human prince of Uran.

The princess stopped when her arms were in the range of touching the wall of an overhanging rock, she stood half underneath. Her eyelids opened carefully focusing the rock in the water in front of her.

She had had been 857 years old, looking like a sixteen year old girl when she rescued _him_.

_Flashback_

_She saw a person racing and crashing through the woods not seeing the end of the foress and the end of the ground below his feet. His last step was into nothing and he dropped twenty meters into the depth only few meters next to the waterfall crushing down the cliff._

_Michiru was swimming in nothing but a undergarment, which was clinging to her body barely covering her womanhood. Her aqua hair flew with her sways reaching her waist. She rushed to the point where she witnessed the man collapsing into the lake not resurfacing. _

_She dived, her blue eyes searching for the drowning man. She grabbed him around the waist dragging him to the nearest rock next to a slightly overhanging cliff. He coughed hardly spitting water when the princess put him on his back on the rock. _

_The scene looked like a mermaid caring for a human man who couldn't swim._

_As she eyed him up from toe to top she took a deep breath getting rose cheeks. He looked handsome and attractive making the princess astonished by his beauty. A humans beauty._

_He looked like eighteen. Blond short hairs were in a messy state, his eyes flickering because of the coughing revealing the color of a deep green. He looked tall, his features smooth although the body was well-trained. He wore a grey tunic, his black boots worn out telling her that he probably ran a long time. She was curious of what he did run away. Then she saw that all his clothes were frazzled. Bloody scratches and blue bruises covered his lightly suntanned frame. _

_Royal creamy fingers stroked over the injuries and the fabrics when she felt a golden eagle stitched on his chest. The royal emblem of Uran. _

_Immediately her eyes were driven by something and she looked up to his neck, that's when she saw the amulet chained up to a necklace. The same amulet her old friend Haruka wore. _

_Her fingers reached for the ornament when suddenly a hand grabbed for hers. _

_Green eyes shot open._

_The same orbs Haruka had._

"_Har…!" She was cut off by a dagger clinging to her throat._

"_Who are you?"_

_End of Flashback_

Michiru's knuckles got white from squeezing her amulet intensely remembering the first meeting with the prince of the Sky.

_The amulet of Uran. _And in that moment she felt it and suddenly turned around to look up the cliff.

.

Haruka's mind made loops catching the sight of a woman in a white short dress.

She blushed of the sight, but she was most shocked about the fact that the woman stood on the deep water.

Aqua hair waved in the wind.

Instinctively she fumbled for the closure of the red sack catching the amulet in her fist.

Breezes encircled her giving her power she couldn't imagine before, when the aqua hair goddess of the sea suddenly turned around, deep ocean-blue orbs drilling in to her whole being. And in the next moment she crushed into the water.

The blonde startled of the look in the woman's face and the scene before her, opening her fist and dropping the amulet to the ground. The shock led her legs to make a step back, but her boots lost their grip on the ground when she slid with her left foot over a wet stone underneath her. She skidded over the edge of the cliff quickly turning around to capture something to hold on with both her hands.

When she looked down she saw the aquanette resurfacing like only a goddess could do. Flipping her wet hair to her back and sliding through them with delicate creamy fingers. That's when she felt the grass she caught with her hands tearing off.

And the next thing she felt was the cold water encircling her whole body.

.

She felt the amulet of Uran in the close vicinity, right above her. That's when she swung around to look up searching for it and finding a young man standing on the cliff watching her. And in the next moment her concentration left her fully, she couldn't remain standing on the lake and crushed into the deep water.

She felt the strength of the lake sucking her to the ground. But she was the princess and it was her element. Her sea.

She resurfaced without a problem feeling somebody crushing into the water some meters next to her.

.

She widened her eyes under water to search for the ornament she lost but she couldn't find it. _It's probably up on the cliff._ She drifted in the water trying to resurface and reaching for something to hold on when she felt the lake starting to whirl around her and sucking her to the depths.

Seconds went by. Haruka tried everything to reach the surface, but the sea was too strong for her. She felt how her strength was leaving her. Her feet and arms began feeling numb. Her eyes shut and she started to swallow water instead of air. Her eyes closed and her movements died down.

All at once an arm grasped for her dragging Haruka to the surface.

Somewhere back in her mind she felt how the sun shone on her face and warmed her up.

When she was clutched with her back against a hard surface firmly, Haruka felt her lungs working and air circling in her body again.

The blonde took a deep breath spilling water and coughing hard. Her eyes widened in shock. She knew she would have died if no one would have rescued her.

Minutes ago Haruka finally calmed down and her head tried to turn around to see her rescuer. That's when she felt the plain side of the dagger pressed against her left cheek. Its coldness reminded her of the cold lake.

"Don't you dare looking at me!" A strong female voice sounded.

Haruka tried again to look up. "I…" She felt how the blade pressed harder against her, her cheek starting slightly to bleed where the tip touched her skin.

"How come that a half-blood like you is creeping around in the forests of _Lebenlang_?" Harukas peaked ears twitched at the sound of the word "half-blood". If she wouldn't have been threatened, she would have thought that the voice sounded beautiful. But it wasn't like this.

"My father is Hotar of Saturn!" The blondes husky voice resonated and Michiru had the feeling that she knew that voice and heard it before.

Blue brows lifted at the answer. "I didn't know that one of the Eldest would have ever disgraced himself and procreated a child with a human woman… and moreover a son who is spying a Lady!"

More blood made its way down the cheek as Haruka furiously tried to see the woman who was talking to her like she would be a lowlife. She wanted to face her and see her evil features. "My mother is Mila of Freiburg and I wasn't spying. I didn't even see you till you turned around." Haruka didn't need to justify herself especially to no woman who was threatening her with a weapon.

"How dare you lying to me. Don't you know who I am?" The bluenette knew that the blond man was lying. She knew Hotar and Mila who was a cousin of her father. She knew of their four sons, especially the one her cousin Ami was involved with and wanted to marry. She wasn't sure but she heard about one daughter, too. A really gifted one. But she never had met her.

"No, I don't know who you are!" Hotar's 'Son' hissed. "So tell me! Who are you?"

_Who are you?_

The princess blinked, having a déjà vu of a special blond human man, hundreds of years ago. Preoccupied in thoughts she released the pressure of the dagger against the cheek of the man, who slowly turned around to face his rescuer. Teal familiar eyes searched for her blue ones. That's when she remembered why she turned in first place to look up to the cliff. She felt the presence of the amulet. _Could it be? _Her eyes eyed up the body of the so-called _Ewigen-Son_. He was definitely handsome and attractive even for a half-blood, but there wasn't any visible indicator of the golden ornament. Her presence reached out searching for it, but it wasn't present. She felt animals nearby in the bushes, fishes in the lake and the aura of that man. Nothing else. Her sudden excitement died down and she instantly lost all her interests in the blond man as well to scold him for observing her and lying to her. She released him and put the dagger into the sheath at her thigh.

Haruka thought she would dream. The bluenette was indeed a goddess. She was the most beautiful creature she had ever laid eyes on. She knew _Ewige _were the ideal of gracefulness and beauty, but the woman in front of her topped it nevertheless. Her aqua curls reached her shoulders. The blue deep eyes mirrored wisdom and maturity. The creamy skin confirmed the looks of her being a Lady. The soft lips looked inviting. The white dress stuck to her body revealing its perfect form. Delicate fingers looked like the one of a musician.

Haruka shook her head superseding the attracting thoughts after all that woman has been villainous to her. "Who are you?" She asked again. Their eyes locked.

Again that familiar glimmer in the green eyes of that man. But it couldn't be. He would have been in possession of the amulet.

After some silent seconds the Lady turned around and walked gracefully away ignoring the blonde's question.

Hotar's daughter didn't know what happened to her. She was left open-mouthed.

_Who are you?_

Her eyes followed the blue tuft till it disappeared in the forests. That's when she realized that she was dragged to a rocky shore.

She looked up to the cliff where she stood moments ago. Then she examined herself. Her clothes were wet, but nothing of her female body was recognizable.

A sigh escaped her mouth, when she rose. Her limbs and her cheek hurt. The blood had mixed up with the water drops on her cheek. It was a small wound, but it cauterized extremely. After a few steps towards the cliff her body started shivering. At first she thought it would be because of her soaked tunic, but the sun couldn't warm her as well.

She ignored her bad thoughts of being poisoned and she climbed up to the top of the cliff seeing the amulet lying in the grass a few meters in front of her, but with the next step she collapsed, her body shaking fiercely and her cheek burning like hell. _The dagger was bewitched!_

_Reach for the amulet._ A female voice sounded in her head. Her arm stretched out for the necklace, but she couldn't reach it.

_So in the end her rescuer will be her murder._

-ö-

**I'm so sorry, but that's it so far. And no, this time I'm not working for the next chapter already. But I have it in mind. ;-)**

**Feedback!  
><strong>


	8. 7: Back to the road

**I'm kind of back. I passed some exams, but the next ones are not far away.**

_**Back to the road.**_

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Michiru sprinted through the forest draining the water pearls off of her hair and body and clothes by mentally removing them. Only few minutes later she was totally dry, her dress and her coat swung according to her movements.

She thought about the blond his face she hadn't even looked at. She didn't remember anything of his features. The only thing she could imagine so vividly were the teal orbs.

_His eyes._ _They were so familiar and yet so unfamiliar. _

_No, it couldn't be! He didn't possess the amulet. Haruka would have it. It's a part of his identity. A part of our identity! Our destiny!_

She slid through the small gate she went hours before going into the forest. The same guard as before stood behind the gate talking to somebody with brown hair.

"Taiki?" Michiru asked instantly when she recognized him.

"My Princess, you are back." The guard turned around when he heard the royalty talking and bowed deeply.

Taiki looked surprised facing his old love. "Michiru? You have been in the forests?"

"Sir Kou, would you mind accompanying me to the mansion?" She firmly asked remembering the guard who wasn't supposed to hear her informal talk with her old acquaintance.

"Of course not milady!" The brown haired Kou pitched formally.

After a good distance to the guard and all other people lingering around the blue haired girl asked: "Taiki, you are the guard of the outer gates of Freiburg!" They stood in a corner of the cloister. "Have you seen the Eldest of Saturn arrive?"

"You mean Hotar?" Michiru nodded. "He arrived two days ago."

_He's in the city._ Her brow twitched. "Has he been alone?"

"He came with a young blonde teenage girl, his two eldest sons and Sets."

"SETS?" She swallowed hard hearing the name of the best friend and companion of the last prince of Uran. "Is he still here?" She hadn't seen him since the death of Haruka.

"Sets?" The brunette asked baffled and she nodded. "No, he departed only hours after he arrived."

Her mind was spinning in silence. Taiki only watched her getting more confused. "Michiru? Is there something on your mind?" His hand stretched for her cheek wanting to caress her observing her inner turmoil getting her frontal lobes. He still loved her.

But the princess simply turned her face to avoid his touch. "You are not better as your brother. Both of you don't know how to behave in front of your future queen refusing a simple 'no'." She was shocked by his sudden emotional movement ripping her out of her worries.

He instantly withdrew his arm having a sad and hurt look. "I'm sorry, my princess."

Michiru was touched. She knew that she had hurt him. "I'm sorry for not returning the feelings." And with that she turned to walk away. She didn't know why, but since the day she was forced to marry one of the Kou brothers who inherited the title of the independent duchy of Varen, everything went upside down and she started to avoid all relatives of the Kou, even her old friend Taiki, she really had liked, but who courted her more aggressive after she was promised to his elder brother. She did have many suitors as future queen of Nepta and the Ewige, but also because of her indefinable beauty. But Michiru declined every offer knowing that she would never be able to love one of them. In the end her parents decided for her and agreed to an arranged marriage with Seiya, because they thought he would the best match. The Kous became more and more powerful the last centuries and were one of the oldest aristocracy families in Nepta. Seiya was the oldest of the three brothers, almost four hundred years older as she was. He would inherit all of the titles. He would be the most powerful _Ewigen _duke in the East. The marriage seemed necessary for her parents to keep the balance and the Eldest supported them in arranging it to keep Varen under control.

"Today arrived Hotar's youngest son Arat and his daughter Hotaru. They were accompanied by a half-blood."

Michiru froze in her movements. _How does the half-blood fit in the family of the Eldest of Saturn?_ Then she walked away.

.

Hotar knew her very well and he knew how her aura felt like. When she neared his mansion, he already went out to open the gate for her.

"Princess Michiru?" He sounded surprised. Their eyes locked.

"Eldest Hotar of Saturn!" She faced him regardful, bowing her head.

"I'm no Eldest anymore. You know…"

"I think it's my decision how to see you Hotar. And I'm full of respect towards you." She smiled. "Would you mind to discuss something important with me?"

The black haired man denied the question with a courtesy and directed her to a large light-flooded lounge. He offered her a seat and eyed the princess who sat now opposite to him at the big table. He hadn't seen her in centuries. Her beauty was astonishing.

"What is it you want to discuss Michiru?" Their eyes locked.

"I have met a half-blood today. He said he is your son."

Hotar furrowed his eyebrows. _They met._

-ö-

_Haruka._

"_Haruka."_

_The aquanette teased him and swirled around breaking away from the blond. Her blue summer dress flew behind when she ran down the stone corridor looking back over her shoulder one more time and leaving behind the wind. Her chuckles died down with her speeding away._

_Haruka smiled letting the girl some space to run away. When he decided it would be enough, he slowly started to pace after her._

_He lost sight of her, when she vanished behind a corner into the dark corridors of the castle. Haruka followed her into the floor not hearing a sound of the bluenette knowing she suppressed it with ease but he could smell the breeze of the sea. He almost felt it raging._

_Michiru increased her pace once more feeling a certain blond coming nearer and the wind becoming stronger circling around her. But she knew she wouldn't have a chance outrunning the prince of the wind. _

_The wind whirled stronger and stronger carrying the scent of the sea. The blond loved the smell of the sea, because he admired the princess of the sea. The sounds of giggles became louder and louder approaching him. She was fast, but not fast enough to escape him._

_And in the next moment he caught her from behind and spun her around in one move pressing her gently against the cold stone wall of the corridor._

_Michiru startled of the sudden but predictable contact with her lover. "Haruka." A hot whisper and a gasp escaped her mouth when she felt the contact of the cold wall with her bare skin at her back knocking the air out of her lungs. _

_Lips met in a fierce kiss. _

_The low temperatures were quickly forgotten as the air heated up. Hands started to wander. A moan escaped the princess when she felt hands caressing her breasts._

"_Haruka." Michiru's breath became their breath._

Haruka.

"Haruka." Her eyes flickered open ever so slowly. The brightness of the sun burned in her eyes till she felt her cheek aching more intensive. Instinctively her hand reached for it, but was stopped immediately before reaching. "Don't touch it."

Green eyes met purple. The blond recognized her father leaning over her. To Hotars sides stood his sister Hotaru and her brother Arat.

"Father." She breathed.

"Shhhh. Don't move. The poison is still in your blood. The antitoxin needs some hours to defeat it and for that you shouldn't move much." He stood up and nodded to Arat. Both lifted her up and seated her on her brother's horse. Her eyes closed because of the grief she was feeling when they carried her.

She was totally dry, what meant that she was laying there for hours. Haruka remembered her efforts to reach the amulet.

"_Reach for the amulet." _She remembered the voice in her head telling her the words.

Teal eyes shot open. She looked around and whispered to herself. "The amulet!"

Hotar nodded to Hotaru who was walking up to her and pressed a golden ornament into the fist of her older sister.

Immediately she was released of all her pain, energy flooded her body defeating the last residual toxin. Her power rose. Her horizon extended.

She felt Hotar approaching her from behind. "That's enough Haruka. Wrap it in the sack and act as you feel bad. We have visitors." He breathed into her ear and she did as she was told.

The visitors were some priests and Lady Ami. They stood between the trees in a row only few meters away from where the blonde laid. But she didn't recognize them till her father gave her the hint.

"Ami, you may tell your cousin, that from now on I will take care of my son."

_Son? Lady Ami?_ _That girl still thinks she's male. She must had a really crush on her the last time they met in Freiburg. That was about five years ago._

"You know Hotar, she's really sorry for the incident. She haven't seen you for years and especially not your son." Ami's eyes scanned the 'weak' body of the blond.

"I know. She didn't know. She had the right to do so." Hotar said understandingly. "I will talk to her later on and explain the situation."

After some minutes of silence Ami nodded and made gesture to get the attention of her followers. "If you need something, you know where to find help." The Lady bowed and left with the priests behind her.

Haruka observed her father waiting till the _Ewige_ were out of sight.

"Arat, make your way to our place and pack your stuff. Haruka and you will leave today." Hotar spoke finally.

And with that Arat left behind the trees.

"Haruka." He reached his daughter. Confused blue eyes met stormy violet ones. "Hotaru and me will stay here. We need to meet somebody. You and Arat will make your way to Uran. We will meet there again!"

-ö-

When they reached their mansion, it was already night. The gates to get out would be closed. The two travelers would have to sneak out.

Arat and Haruka wore their travel cloaks. "That's like the last time we had to sneak out of the city, sister." He knocked her shoulders and winked at her. "I did the horses. They're a mile behind the outer gate." He smiled, happy for the coming adventure.

"Sets and your brothers took the direct path to Uran." Hotar looked to Hotaru, who smiled weakly back. "I want you to take the path up to Heidelberg. Something is out there…" His purple eyes drifted to the bag in Harukas hand. „And whatever it is, it's looking for the amulet!" He grabbed the arm of the blonde. „Haruka, I want you to get to know it. It's yours and only yours. Use it if you need it. Hide it, if you think it's not safe and show it if you want to be seen or need a key. For us it is only an amulet, for you it is so much more!" He released the arm. „Three days from now you will reach Heidelberg. There you'll need to meet a priest named Rei. She will have some answers. In nine days I want you to be in Uran and there expect our arrival sixteen days from now."

Blue eyes widened interrogative.

„The day of the Uranian ball." was the last Hotar said and he turned around to his fleshly daughter whilst Arat and Haruka vanished in the dark.

.

They did the two inner walls without any interception.

"You know…" Haruka began whispering while they were running soundless to the next wall. "…I'm so confused." They leant against the outer wall now.

"I know. I'm too. I'm sorry I can't help you."

Their eyes met. The blonde nodded knowingly. Her thoughts drifted from the end of their stay in Freiburg to the aquanette. She shook her head not wanting to think about her. She forced herself to imagine the time before the meeting with that woman. Suddenly she chuckled remembering Usagi.

"What is it?" Arat asked curious.

"You know, Usagi arrived yesterday and found a man who she loved from first sight. We arrived today, but we didn't have the chance to meet somebody, except…"

"Except?"

"Except the aquanette." And now her thoughts went back to that specific woman. But why not ask him about her. "Arat, do you know something about…" Both felt a man walking in their direction.

Silently they made their way forward next to the wall walking away from the arriving man and when they were save they jumped over the wall.

They ran through the forest, meeting their horses at a spring and disappeared into the night.

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

**Please R&R**


	9. 8: Heidelberg

**Hey there, I'm back from Singapore and Indonesia where I had time to think about this chapter. Only some chapters to go till Haruka and Michiru meet again. ;-) Hope you don't mind that the story takes that long to finally see the two together.**

**Don't mind my bad English.  
><strong>

_**Heidelberg.**_

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Arat's head snapped to the side looking into the depths of the forest. "Haruka. Do you hear that?"

The blonde's peaked ears twitched and she concentrated her senses to wide their horizons. And she heard it. "Sounds like a scream."

"Not only a scream. It's a female voice crying for help!" Their eyes locked. "Would you mind to play the rescuer?" They smiled at each other remembering the past adventures.

"Not at all." And with that she took Lacrimas reins and turned her to the direction of the scream.

They sprinted for ten minutes when Arat suddenly stopped his horse. "Haruka! There is not only that woman. There are men. I can see nine."

The blonde nodded. "Humans. Rebels! I can feel eight of them. The other one and the woman…"

"_Ewige!_" His hand vanished in his quiver grabbing for an arrow and in the next moment it shot through the air announcing their arrival.

In the next moment they joined the fighting pack.

Haruka analyzed the scene. There was a young girl looking noble with blond hair fighting with a dagger against three dark-clothed men. Some meters next to her was an _Ewige_ fighting without effect against four of the men. Haruka examined his wounds. He was going to die. The eighth of the men they saw before was lying with Arat's arrow in his chest on the ground crying next to some other bodies.

The dark aura of the men was that present that Haruka didn't have to think about helping the girl would be the right thing. She pulled her sword, reached the adversaries of the girl and beat one man. She got the attention of two whilst the third took care of the girl and was killed only minutes later by her.

_They are no normal humans._ A normal human couldn't fight that hard. The swordsmith needed all her concentration to kill the two humans. She looked for the girl and found her fighting one of Arat's enemies. She was about to join them when the man with the arrow in his chest battered her leg with his sword. Haruka cried for her wounded leg and turned around beating him with her blade. That was when teal eyes met dying red ones.

_There she stood. Her aqua hair were waving in the wind of the fire. Her blue eyes were sparkling in the light._

_She wanted to run to her closing the gap between them and rescuing her._

_Don't look back!_

_She felt a too familiar male aura behind her._

"_Don't look back!" the man ordered serious._

_Why? She turned slowly._

"_Don't look back!" He repeated more forceful, but she didn't mind._

_Blue eyes watched her carefully. "Haruka. Don't. Do as he wants." She heard the blue haired woman almost whispering. Their eyes met a brief moment. _

"_I can't!" She wanted to see his eyes and if it would be the last time. _

"_Don't look back!" Now it sounded desperate._

_Teal eyes met darkened red ones burning with fire._

"_I wish you just didn't fall in love and I could have kept you from this meeting my prince!"_

"_Haruka!" The cry was the last thing she heard._

Her emotions rose. She grabbed the dying man in front of her shaking him and speaking to him. "Who are you!"

No reaction. She shook him harder. "Who are you?" She screamed at him.

"He's dead, Haruka!" The blonde felt a hand on her shoulder and sighed. "Let's see what we can find."

The blonde nodded disappointed. Then she turned and eyed the girl whose blue dress was ruined with blood and dirt. She kneeled in front of her companion but he was dead as well.

The girl rose grabbed her dagger and jumped with one step in front of Haruka touching with the knife the blondes throat.

Haruka was too surprised from the sudden action of the girl who they saved that she didn't try to do anything.

"I wouldn't do that." Arat spoke in _Ewigen. _His bow was tensed and the tip of one arrow was only an inch from her head.

The girls eyes rolled to the side looking for the voice. "Who are you?"

"We are travelers on our way to Heidelberg and…" Her brother explained.

"…and we saw that you would need help. Oh girl, come on. Could you please remove that dagger? I didn't have those good encounters with these kinds of knives." The blonde spit in the most common human language. "We risked our lives and saved you."

The girl's eyes shot to Haruka. Teal ones locked with oceanic. The girl was beautiful and somehow Haruka felt and knew that the face was familiar. But she didn't know why.

"You risked your lives for saving me?" She spoke in the same language as the swordsmith and chuckled. "I didn't ask for help and I wouldn't have needed it. I was fully in control till you two came and thought of helping me."

"I think your two companions think otherwise." Arat removed the arrow the moment she retracted her dagger.

"They were no companions." She turned away making some steps towards the corpses kneeling in front of them. "They were guardians I wasn't able to lose before."

"So I think you wouldn't have needed them as well?" Haruka spoke, but the girl didn't react.

"Come on Haru, we should look after your leg and then go." Arat didn't want to waste his time with a girl being like that. He ripped some of the clothes of one _Ewige_ and tied the blonde's leg till it didn't bleed anymore. Then her brother spoke some silent words calling the two horses which arrived in the next second from behind the bushes. They were about to jump on their back.

"They were no normal humans!" Suddenly the girl spoke. "They had the body of humans but the power of _Ewige_. I haven't seen something like that before."

Arat and Haruka both turned around. "They were obsessed." Arat explained. "I've seen it before."

Haruka looked shocked to her brother, when the scales fell from her eyes. _The red eyes._ They looked like Hotaru when she was obsessed and foreseeing.

"You have seen it before?" The girl stood up looking at and examining them.

Arat nodded and Haruka saw in her eyes that she was about to ask more but the look in Arats face told her not to ask.

After some seconds of silence the girl spoke. "They had nothing with them. There are only their clothes and their swords. I think they were rebels. They are quit common in this region."

"They were rebels. But not of the good side." Haruka said accordingly.

"What tells you that some rebels are good?" The swordsmith oppressed a respond while her eyes fell on blue ones. The girl was eyeing her up and when Harukas peaked ears twitched she saw that the blue eyes fell on them staying there for some seconds. "Wait a second." She lifted her index finger and turned to the dead bodies.

Haruka and Arat looked at each other confused. The girl grabbed the necklace of her two guardians. She blew a whistle and a brown horse arrived and in the next moment she sat on it.

The blonde girl threw a glance over her shoulder to the two surprised faces of the siblings. "What?" She asked as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "I thought you wanted to go to Heidelberg? That's also my way."

-ö-

Heidelberg was at the edge of the Black forest. The river Neckar divided the hills and the city in two half, every half expanded up to the hills.

The temple was on the top of the mountain direct behind the city. There was only one way to get there and that were only stairs to the top.

Heidelberg was built of human and _ewigen _architecture. The core of the city to the fourth wall was populated by _Ewige_ and looked almost like Freiburg with the marmorean arcs and buildings. The fifth wall was mixed with humans and the last and seventh was pure human.

The city was the biggest defensive work in the west of the state Nepta. From the castle up on the mountain you could see the border to Uran.

Haruka and Arat walked on the street next to the river Neckar leading to the mountain road. They passed the old town which was pretty lively with _Ewige_ as well as some humans and the defensive wall of the big castle.

"I don't understand that girl. She was about to kill me for saving her. In the next moment she travels with us for one day never telling us her name or something else from her. And then in the next moment when we pass the outer barrier of Heidelberg she vanished." The blonde shook her head. "That's weird."

"Don't worry Haruka. It wasn't wrong to help her and to accompany her. Something tells me it was right. Probably she returned to her family. At least she's a member of Heidelberg."

The blonde looked confused to her brother. "How do you know that?"

"She was wearing an emblem of Heidelberg around her neck. She's for sure back at home by now."

"The two guards?" Haruka said with big eyes remembering the girl taking something from their neck.

"I remember them having the same necklaces till she removed them. I think her family organized some men to guard her traveling through the Black Forest being full of rebels." Their eyes locked.

"Somehow I know that we will see her again." The blonde smiled.

"Don't tell me that you have eyes for that girl."

"What? No, never." She screamed. "The girl is crazy!"

Arat laughed out loud. "Come on. We should hurry up; it's still a long way."

-ö-

When they were about to take the first of the many steps up to the temple, they were welcomed by two priests who said that they were expected.

Arat and Haruka followed them in silence. They passed working priests looking dumbfounded at them and finally the gate of the cloister. Inside they were directed to the temple.

"She wants to speak to you alone." One of the monks said to Haruka and signified Arat to wait with them in front of the sidedoor.

Arat nodded to Haruka that it would be ok for him and with that she went inside.

The door closed creaky behind her. The blonde walked slowly through a row of benches. Every step of her echoed that loud that there wouldn't be any surprising moments. When she stood in the middle of the temple, she turned to the right to the altar feeling four presences there.

"I've heard about you and finally I meet you personally." The woman with long black hair spoke suddenly, but Haruka could only see her back. She nodded her head and the three priests next to her left. When they were alone the abbess turned away from the altar and green eyes met dark purple ones. "I guess you were searching for me? I'm the abbess of the cloister and the head of the _Esmés._ My name is Rei Hino."

-ö-

"The human blood is about a day old, but the graves only some hours." Setsuna said when she examined the small battlefield.

"It was the last blessing of _Ewige._ There must have been also some dead persons of us. They were picked up but gave the humans the last blessing!" Michiru spoke silently.

Setsuna nodded. "They were obsessed! I'm sure of that. Even if it's pretty weak. I can feel a familiar aura still lingering around."

"You mean…?" Her eyes went wide.

_The blond stood only some meters away of her when a familiar man arrived behind him._

_She wanted to call her beloved one, but the shock kept her calm. "Haruka." She whispered only for her audible._

"_Don't look back!" the man ordered serious._

_She saw the blond turning around._

"_Don't look back!" The man repeated more forceful, but the prince didn't mind._

"_Haruka. Don't. Do as he wants." Michiru whispered but this time loud enough for Haruka to hear her. Teal eyes met hers for a brief moment._

"_I can't!" the prince said._

"Yes. He's back!" Red eyes locked with blue ones.

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

**Hope to finish the next chapter till next week...**


	10. 9: Aiko

**Hey, here I am again. Just read and review.^^**

**Aiko.  
><strong>

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

_Rei Hino._ Haruka watched the priest moving slowly to her. She was surprised to meet a girl who looked younger than her and wasn't an old grey haired priest. She had heard about her and her youth but she was an _Ewige_ and for that probably about 1000 years old. For Ewige a pretty young abbess but the blackhaired woman was born gifted and taught from that day to be an abbess someday however the blonde didn't know with what specific gift.

"Don't look like that! I do know that you're a girl and I'm not interested." Rei said serious staying just a few meters in front of the blonde who was eyeing her up and down.

"What I didn't…" She protested.

"I know, it was just a joke." She smiled. "I just wanted to loosen the situation. You looked really nervous and stiff. By the way you can call me Rei. I don't like this abbess and priestess stuff!" Harukas mouth stood open. Rei took a walk around the blonde and examined her. "You know if I wouldn't know that you're a girl…" Haruka felt the blackhaireds breath near to her right ear. "… I would love to…" She chuckled staying in front of Haruka. "… do some swordfights, but as a girl I think you're not as strong as you were before!"

"What? Who are you to assess me? I'm one of the strongest swordfighter!" The blonde protested.

"Oh you are!" She smirked. "For a half-blood indeed you are in the world of the humans, but as I said before you are not that strong as you were before."

"What does that mean 'before'? I haven't been this strong before as I am now!" And with that Haruka dragged her sword and attacked the priest and placed the knife near her neck.

Rei looked surprised but more of the blondes words than her movement. "I see. That's why you're here. You don't know yet." And with the last word the priest chipped the sword off and placed her own sword at the blonde's throat.

_How many times do I have to have a knife at my throat?_ Haruka was amused by the repeating situation.

"That means you don't use it yet, do you?"

The swordsmith frowned. "What do I not know yet? I don't know what you mea…?" She inhaled sharply the moment she understood. "The amulet!"

The priest turned around and packed away her sword. "So that means you do have it, but don't use it and moreover you don't know about you and the amulet." Rei took a moment to think about the situation. "I've foreseen you're coming." She swirled around and twinkled. "As many times before. But that's 'your' first time!" She pointed with her index finger on the other woman. "Personally I have seen almost all of you except the one who died as a child and the first woman of you who was kept a secret and never was awakened. But believe me I have seen all of you in my dreams and no one looked as good as you, no female and no male one." Again the twinkle.

"What are you talking about?" The blonde shook her head in confusion.

"Don't you have dreams of your past lives yet?" A black brow rose.

Haruka looked unknowable at first but the next moment she remembered all the dreams and the hints she had in her life especially when she got the amulet and intuitively she grabbed for it. "The amulet."

Rei nodded smiling. "You are a reincarnation and if I counted right you are all in all the ninth but the third woman of them. The amulet belongs to you and your former ones, it's hiding your true strength." The priest was overcharged. "Actually everyone of your past lives came here with the knowledge of themselves. I know Hotar sent you but I can't tell you more. I'm not allowed to. You have to get to know it by yourself. I can only advise you to get to the bottom of yourself with the help of the amulet and come back when you know how to use it and your training here will begin!"

Haruka was speechless and shook her head to wake up. "And that was all? So just tell me of who I am the reincarnation!"

The priest waged her head. "You know the answer already. Somewhere deep inside it's waiting to be found by yourself. So Haruka, I'm sorry but I'm not allowed to tell you. Your past belongs to you. But I can tell you it's at least not only your own past, it is also connected to someone else past who you get to know really soon. And the most important girl linked to your lives you've met already." And with that Haruka saw the last twinkle of Rei for that day when the priest vanished behind the altar. "Come back when you know who you are and I'll tell you for what you already came here today!"

-ö-

"The princess of Nepta, Michiru Kaioh." A servant introduced the aqua haired woman to her brother who sat in a richly decorated stool at the other side of the entrancehall.

The duke of Odenwald had the same hair color as his youngest sister. They were cut short and matched his blue ceremonial uniform perfectly. All in all he looked like 35 but his real age was almost 4300 years old. He was the first child of their mother, the Queen of Nepta.

"My princess." He rose to his feet bowing deeply.

Michiru waved him to get up and blue eyes met a brownish pair. "Don't be like that Ryoichi. At least I'm your sister and you are as well the prince of Nepta!"

"Pah. But not the heir of the throne." He said disdainful.

"You will never forgive me for that, will you?"

Ryoichi shook his hand. "I'm not allowed to refuse something to the future queen and in that case my forgiveness for you!"

"Ryoichi. You should hear yourself sounding like a child, so behave yourself now and exercise your office as a duke and a brother of the princess of Nepta!"

Brown eyes looked surprised and searched for the familiar voice when the servant quickly introduced her while she stepped through the gate and stood right beside his sister. "My highborn, Baroness Setsuna Meioh, the guardian of time."

Ryoichi took some steps forward to the two women. "You two travel together? The last time you did was about a century ago and ended only some years after the last fall of Uran. Now I wonder if there will be the next fall of Uran in the near future or…" He inhaled sharply and his eyes locked with his sisters the moment he understood. "My daughter!" Michiru shuddered hearing her brother calling her daughter his one. "No, you can't. You brought her and left her and now you want to take her back again?"

"Royichi, no one wants to take her away from you and your family." Setsuna said calmly and Michiru nodded reluctantly.

"I believe Setsuna when she told me that you really love her like a biological daughter and I don't want to take that feeling from you. I don't want to take her from you. You are her father and and your wife Itoe is her mother and your sons are her brothers. Nobody wants to change that. Neither do I!" Michiru cried inwardly about the words she just said. She imagined the day she got to know that she was pregnant the moment she only wanted to peg to that child and the birth when she had to give the girl away. The sad blue-haired woman's eyes never left her brothers, who lightly nodded telling her that he understood and believed her. "Where can I find her Royichi? I just want to see her."

"You can't see her?" Her brother was surprised. Her sister was the most talented seeress he had ever met. "Why?" His eyes squinted but his sister didn't react. Michiru stood silently waiting for the answer of her question.

Royichi sighed. "She went for a ride." He then said with a certain undertone.

"You say it like she wouldn't come back." Michiru furrowed.

"You know everytime she goes for a ride I get her some guards but she always manages to lose them and then she's away for some days or weeks. But she always comes back healthy that's the most important." He smiled like a loving father. "She's so much like you when you were a child." He chuckled. "And even now I've heard you disappear sometimes. I know that you should be on your way to Uran and there is a YOU on the way but the real you is here. So…?!"

_That sounds like me and her father._ Michiru smiled to get to know something about her daughter. "When…"

Her brother shook his head. "I don't know but I will send her on a trip to Uran to meet you there when she's back home. At least you will be there for the ball and some weeks after it and I think she will be quiet interested in meeting her aunt."

Michiru smiled at him. "Thank you." And with that Setsuna and his sister turned around to go.

"I do love her. She's my daughter and the sister of my three sons. Please don't take her away from me and don't tell her."

Setsuna looked to his sister. Red eyes told her that the answer was her decision and that she didn't have to do what he's begging for.

"I won't." She whispered sadly.

"Thank you my princess. My sister."

-ö-

"There we go again and nothing has changed. I wish we would live just like before and that amulet wouldn't have appeared!" The blonde and her brother stood in front of the two horses preparing them for the coming ride. Heidelberg was already some hundred meters behind them invisible by the forest.

"I know how frustrating it is Haruka. Maybe you just should use it. At least the abbess and father told you to use it." Arat stated.

"She hadn't said it like that and father had said that when I think I should use it then yes, but actually I don't feel like it. Every time I used it more or less, there was an eerie power flooding me. It was so strong that it kind of controlled me and I wasn't me anymore but someone else." Her brother nodded understandingly.

"Come on, just let us get going." Arat finally said petting his horse.

"I hope you don't mind to take me with you?" Both heads snapped backwards to search for the familiar voice. The girl from the woods suddenly appeared from behind the bushes keeping the reins of her brown horse which stepped behind her. She was in a dark blue travel coat made of expensive Cynester which was a specialty of the _Ewige_ in Heidelberg.

"That's like I told you, that we would see her again." Haruka whispered to Arat. Behind them the girl smiled widely hearing them nevertheless how quiet the two would speak. "Something is weird about her…"

"I know. I know. Probably we should leave her behind and just go without her. But she could follow us and she knows where we head to. So I think it would make no difference." Arat stated speaking under his breath and Haruka nodded agreeing with him.

"Why should we take you with us?" Haruka tried to shook her off.

"As you said just a moment before I can follow you and I know where you head to!" She chuckled when the blonde and her brother looked surprised but both nodded.

"I hope that you first of all won't keep a dagger against my throat and maybe you could tell us your name this time!? That would be nice to know." Haruka's orbs locked with deep blue ones.

The blonde girl smiled. "My name is Aiko. And no, I won't keep a dagger against your throat anymore, because I left it at home, but what I have is a sword and bow and arrow." She twinkled whilst Haruka sighed. Next to her stood Arat furrowing about her name who felt too familiar.

"So Aiko then. Where are your guards this time?" Haruka asked.

Aikos smile grew wider. "They were not as good as the last ones and got lost after a few meters in the forest." And with that she jumped on her brown horse and passed them. "So you should hurry up if you don't want to get lost as my guards did!" She vanished in the bushes.

"You know Haruka, you're right something is weird about that girl. Why would she like to accompany us to Uran. She's definitely from Heidelberg and probably belongs to a noble family. I've heard her name before I'm sure. It sounds so familiar."

"How many girls have a name like her? Child of love. I think there will be more than one." Haruka watched her brother but knew she couldn't destroy his doubts. By all means she hadn't heard of that name before. "Now, come on or she will be away. At least now she's alone and we should see it like that, that she's the one who needs us as her alternate guards. I don't want to bear the blame if there's happening something to her!" Haruka smiled faintly at her brother.

Arat nodded reluctantly. "At least she doesn't have a dark aura and YOU definitely cast a covetous eyes on her."

"What? No, never!" She tried to protest but Arat laughed at her jumped on his horse and rode the way where Aiko vanished.

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

**Don't forget to review. I think they will meet in the next few chapters.**


	11. 10: Like you

_****_**Sorry for the delay, I actually don't know what I did all the time, but I was not writing. This chapter I finished with my last one, so I just needed to correct it. But I already continued... only some sentences... but it will get more for the next chapter. SO have fun reading it and please review.  
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_**Like you.**_

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

"Michiru, you don't have to keep silent. After all she's your daughter and she has the right to know that. She will understand your reasons for giving her away. I know that… she is as smart like you!"

The aquanette smiled lightly. "I wish she would understand, but I don't want to destroy her life and her trust in her family." She sighed looking in the eyes of her green haired companion where she saw appreciation. "I don't know what to do when I meet her. But nevertheless I finally want to see her. It's hurting so much. You don't know how hard it was and is for me only to have the memory of her birth but nothing more."

"Don't you see her?" Setsuna looked dumbfounded and Michiru shook her head.

"I tried at her thirteens birthday. But she refused me, I couldn't see her clearly. I thought it would be me, I didn't feel well that day probably of my sorrow I felt that day. That was also the motivation to finally see her in real after so many years… the next time I tried were some years later. That time I couldn't see anything at all and it became clear to me that she has got the power to suppress me." She smiled sadly. "Only one had the power to suppress me like that."

"Haruka!" Her companion stated and Michiru nodded. "It looks like she's got something more from him than only the blonde hair."

Michiru's brow rose. "Blonde? At her birth she had dark blue ones!"

"Oh yes she had, but only some weeks later they turned more and more into blond. The same blonde the Haruka of your childhood had!"

"Her blonde was the most beautiful!" She smiled but then pouted. "You've never told me that!"

"My princess didn't ask!" The older woman twinkled and after some moments of silence she told her how her daughter looked like. "She's got your eyes, that powerful and deep blue and the most important she's got your beauty. Actually your features are more dominant than her fathers from whom she has only the hair color and perhaps the nose. Oh and of course she does have your locks."

-ö-

Haruka watched Aiko trying not to attract attention, but was definitely noticeable. The observed girl was playing with one of her blonde curls and winded it around her index finger. Between the two was a small bonfire when suddenly the short haired girl got bumped from her brother sitting next her. "Don't stare at her that obvious; no one can be so stupid and not feel your glares!" The blonde tomboy looked at Arat with an open mouth.

"I didn't glare. I was just looking what she's doing."

Her brother was about to lecture the blonde when Aiko spoke standing to their sides. "Would you mind if I sit down next to you Haruka?"

Said persons mouth opened more and when she realized what the other girl asked she wagged her head. "Not at all." She bumped into Arat pushing him away to clear the way for her companion.

_That couldn't be, is that girl interested in Haruka like she is in her?_ Arat disbelievingly watched Aiko sitting down next to his sister. "You know what?" He jumped to his feet. "I will see if I can find some more wood for the bonfire that it can burn the whole night. At least I think Haruka has to sleep some hours and maybe Aiko wants to rest a little bit as well as me." He nodded to them and vanished behind the trees leaving his sister with a still gaping mouth behind.

Both watched the fire making its movements in accordance with the shallow wind sitting side by side in silence. They were that near that Haruka felt the warmth the girl next to her was emitting.

"You're a halfblood!" The tomboy turned to watch Aikos face who looked straight into the fire. Then she followed the smaller girl's view. The fire's warmth danced on her face.

"What makes you think that?" Haruka asked after some quiet moments.

Aiko smiled faintly. "I've observed you. It's not like that that you like to sleep, it's because you need to as Arat mentioned before. That's the human side of a _Lebenlang_. Besides, you could have almost fooled me with your strength; your fighting movements looked like an _Ewige_. But still, you are not that light-footed and elegant."

"What?" Haruka laughed. "Have you ever seen a _Lebenlang_? They trample so much more than me, they are not trained by _Ewige_ like I am and would look like an elephant next to me!" She protested.

"So you are one and you were just trained by _Ewige_?" She stated and Harukas mouth gaped again, thinking about what she said. "I thought so because your brother is indeed one of us and probably your family too. You're raised by them, so you behave like we do, but you can't be one of us. It looks like your something between a _Lebenlang _and an_ Ewige."_

"Woah. Hey, hey, hey. I didn't say that I'm a _Lebenlang_." Haruka looked at Aiko dumbfounded. She was something in between. Born a _Lebenlang,_ but raised like an _Ewige_ and she doesn't belong to any side.

The blonde girl looked at her. "But you didn't say that you're an _Ewige_ neither!"

Haruka observed her deep blue eyes and sighed. "That's because I'm not one of them. As much as I wish to, it's nothing I can achieve! I'm not one of you and will never be one of you!"

Aiko nodded lightly and spoke after a moment's silence. "What makes you think that I am one of them?"

Haruka looked confused. "You are not? But your aura and your…"

"I know my aura and everything else… It's kind of complicated; I am one of them, but as well like I'm not one of them."

"I don't understand." The tomboy stuttered.

"You know there was a reason I accompanied you and Arat that day when you came to rescue me?" She stretched her hands which were covered by gloves made of Cynester and lifted her right hand towards the other blondes face.

Haruka winced when the special fabric of the glove touched her cheek and caressed it. It was so soft and in the next moment indestructible. Cynester was a fascinating substance and that was the first time Haruka came in contact with it. The deep blue eyes bewitched her and she couldn't move but was afraid what would happen next. "Aiko, I am…" But then she felt her fingers touching her ear and stroke above the peak.

"The peaked ears, that's what makes you recognizable as a _Lebenlang_. I only know it from books. I haven't seen someone of your kind before. Not in real life and not in a dream." The next moment she removed her hand from Haruka and pulled her long blonde curls behind her ear and revealed ears which were peaked. They were not as much pronounced as the tomboy's but they were definitely recognizable also from far.

"You are a…" Her mouth stood wide open.

Aiko shook her head. "No, I'm no _Lebenlang_. But I also don't feel like a real _Ewige_, although the abbess told me that I definitely am." She shook her head and her hair covered her ears again. "It's not only the peaked ears. They are quiet easy to hide but something else isn't preventable that others wouldn't be conspicuous about…"

"And that would be?" Haruka asked curiously.

"I grew faster than the people my age. My body looks already like a human with fifteen while others look like about seven or perhaps eight."

The swordsmith looked confused. "How old are you really?"

"I'm getting 52 in the month of the two moons falling."

Haruka choked. "I'm getting 53…"

"And you look like eighteen. You see what I mean?" The short cut blonde nodded. "You are the first person I've met who's live is closely resembling mine, that's why I decided to meet you again and accompany you!"

"Who are you parents? Are they…?"

Aiko shook her head. "They are normal _Ewige_. My father told me that some ancestor of us were like me, but somehow I couldn't believe him. I actually don't know whether they are my real parents, I mean I do have some looks like my brothers. But nobody of them has got peaked ears or growing faster." She chuckled. "I researched in books and studied our line and ancestral chart. I don't know what to believe, it's…"

They felt Arat coming back. "Hey! I thought Haruka would sleep already till I come back…" He saw the looks in their eyes that something's going on. _Oh no. They didn't make out, did they?_ "Did I interrupt you or something?"

Haruka shook her head and Aiko fell silent. "Ok, ok." He threw some wood on the burning fire and sat next to his sister.

-ö-

Arat watched the blonde girl carefully. She looked into the flames still sitting next to his sister who slept for almost an hour now. "Your name sounds quiet familiar Aiko. Who are your parents?"

The girl kept quiet.

"I think I remember your name given to a baby girl from the royal family." She didn't react at all. "And at least the duke of Odenwald is the son of the queen. But then I remember his daughter being born about fifty years ago which wouldn't make sense after all. You're too old for that." Suddenly she turned around and ocean eyes met brown. They looked angry and sad simultaneously.

"You don't know anything about the duke and his daughter. So don't make any conclusions. My name is maybe the same like hers, but it doesn't have to mean that I am automatically her." She tried to speak calm.

Arat looked dumbfounded. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking about your name all the time and your guards… I mean you look noble and it would have been so easy to combine it." Aiko watched the flames again and remained silent. The dark haired man sighed. "Ok. I understood, just tell us about you when you think you're ready."_ Haruka was right:_ _That girl was indeed weird._

-ö-

Uran was set in a hollow, which made it invisible from a certain distance. The forest hid the big town walls on the hills around the city. The only way in was the big river. On almost every hill was a tower rising above the trees and occupied by soldiers anytime ready to spot enemy troops and give alarm with a fire which was ignited by the tower first seeing the fiends and after that by all others giving alarm to the city. The towers get less and less leaving the city, but there remained always a chain from city to city.

The two cloaked figures made their way down the valley to the street by the river following its flow down into the city. Humans were walking and riding horses or taking a horse carriage up and down the broad way. It was really loud and vivid like human cities were and Uran was at least the capital of the humans.

"I can feel him. He's probably also in town." Red eyes turned to her companion.

Michiru only nodded. "I saw him entering the gate to Uran. It was only some hours after we felt his aura in the forest around the dead human bodies before we got to Heidelberg. He wants us to know that he's also here!"

"How do you know?" Their eyes locked.

"He turned looking straight in my eyes and then he started to grin! He wanted me to watch him entering the city and wants us to know that he's here. He's probably joining the ball as well."

"At least we are here to stop him before he's going to burn the city again!"

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

**Please R&R**


	12. 11: Uranian Market

**Uranian Market.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

"_Haruka. You can't!" The blue haired girl looked after the blond teenage boy who ran towards the shore of the small lake._

"_Who said that I can't?" He turned and winked. "But you can! So help me." He stripped his boots and clothes except his underwear and his amulet around his neck. On the chest glimmered the stitched golden eagle; the sign of the Uranian kingdom._

"_You are a stupid boy. You know that I'm not allowed to…" She took some steps towards the small lake in the forests. It was the hidden lake in the Black Forest behind the city of Freiburg._

"_Oh come on. You are the princess, nobody can punish you." Haruka slowed down, when his barefoot soles touched the cold water, which pulsated slightly, for the first time._

"_Haruka please, if my mother gets to know…"_

"_Actually I think she would be proud of you, because you would have rescued a non-swimmer." The blond interrupted the girl, who looked like sixteen, but he felt and knew that she was much older than him. He knew it due to the way she spoke and behaved. The blond who looked like seventeen moved more and more into the blue liquid, which wandered higher and higher alongside his leg._

"_What? Wait! You've never told me before…" The water was almost reaching his shoulders, when the aquanette ran to the water wide shocked by the fact that her human friend couldn't swim. _

"_Come on, princess. It's getting really cold and it's not really pleasant by now."_

"_Haruka. Don't!" And with that the blond head vanished under the water leaving his element behind; the Sky._

_He felt the water surrounding his body and the air in his lungs leaving him; the amulet got heavier and it almost felt like pulling him more down into the depths and darkness of the lake. _

_He needed to hold his breath for some more minutes till his friend sees no more rules against rescuing him._

_And in the moment he needed his own element the most and was about to emerge by himself, he felt the element of her friend starting to move and circle around him; the water was pushing him up and he saw the surface coming nearer till he broke through it feeling the sun dancing on his face. The rest of his body followed his head and soon his feet stood on the lake and then the water started to roll off of his skin and his hair._

_The blond turned around. The princess stood with her eyes closed also on the lake only some meters from the shore. She had removed her shoes as well and stood there barefoot. Some water-jets surrounded her, dancing around in a circle covering almost every part of her body. "Mi… ." _

_Haruka was amazed and was slowly drawn towards the sea goddess. He couldn't believe what he was just seeing. He was impressed by the power of the smaller girl and somehow jealous of the water caressing his friend the way he always wanted to do since he started to have feelings for her. _

_With that growing jealousy his own element, the wind started to blow stronger in their surroundings, building waves on the water plane and starting to join the water-jets around the blue-haired girl and caressed her. The dark blue summer dress of the princess moved with the wind now circling her as well. The amulet around her delicate neck glowed as well as Harukas now did._

_A small smile widened on the girls face when she felt the wind touching her skin._

_Like in trance the blond boy slowly moved to the girl and stopped a few inches in front of her feeling the water and wind-jets starting to circle him as well till the two stood in the center._

"_The Sea and the Sky love each other. They always did and always will." Haruka whispered raising slowly his hand to the girls face. "You are the Princess of the Sea and I'm the Prince of the Sky." His right hand touched her chin and slowly raised her face; in the next moment the princess' eyes opened and deep blue orbs stared in green ones with… "Love."_

_The blonds head moved closer towards the aquanettes. Their noses were barely touching, when suddenly his feet lost control of standing on the water and he splashed into the lake._

_The water was only some inches deep that after some seconds both stood again on their feet smiling and laughing at each other. The magic was gone and the romantic moment as well._

"_You know, next time I should teach you how to swim and not just to believe that you will be rescued nevertheless."_

"_I think so, too my little sister." The two heads snapped around to see Ryoichi standing at the border to the woods. "At least magic power as yours shouldn't be applied for somebody besides yourself and especially not used for and seen by a human boy. I hope your teacher won't be that strict to you breaking the rules." He smiled, and then shook his head. "At least our mother and father won't punish you."_

"_Ryoichi! You misunderstood… Haruka was…" The aquanette stepped towards the direction of her brother pleading with grace, but he raised his hand to command her to stop. He turned around, his long green coat waving and then vanished behind the trees and bushes._

"_I'm sorry, my princess." Haruka was upright next to the girl. "I will explain it to Setsuna. I know she will understand." _

"_No, Ruka. I will explain it to her and I will accept every punishment she's got in mind!" She said like a queen and Haruka felt once more like an unimportant human boy who was in love with the heir of the throne of the eternities._

.

Haruka woke up with sweat on her forehead. She dreamt again being that boy.

"Who are you Haruka?" The blonde whispered holding her head.

"That would interest me as well."

The blonde jumped out of her bed in a defensive demeanor observing the room. Behind her a girl chuckled. "Come on, Haru. You don't want to hurt me, do you?"

"Aiko, don't you ever sleep?!" But the blacksmith knew the answer.

"Only because I have ears being similar to yours and the fact that I grow faster, doesn't mean I am like you!" The blonde girl stated. "I am an _Ewige_! Don't forget that fact."

"I know." She loudly exhaled. "So why are you not in the city looking around?" Haruka watched her sitting elegantly on her bed opposite to the blondes.

"It rained." She plumply stated.

The short haired blonde looked outside the window. The sun was shining and there were no traces of rain. She looked to the smaller girl raising an eyebrow. "Aiko…"

"Ok, ok. I was outside for some hours. Your brother and sister went with me. Arat left us after some moments. He was talking about meeting someone. So Hotaru and I were at the market and it was pretty nice till it got really boring, so I thought you would like to go with me as well to the market, so I might get home…"

"Aiko? What did she tell you?" Haruka knew the blonde girl lied.

"Don't behave as if you know me…" The tomboys eyebrows furrowed and her green eyes were staring in blue ones. "Oh, Haruka. Somehow she must have seen them. She was asking about my ears and then my age."

"And you didn't want to talk about it." Aiko nodded and Haruka tried to explain. "Perhaps she saw you in a vision. You know Hotaru is really talented…"

"So am I." Aiko cut her off and when she saw Harukas questioning look, she shook her head and turned around. "Come on and get ready that we can go to the market. I kind of like the human easiness there and with you I'm sure it won't get boring."

.

Haruka grabbed the amulet and put it around her neck. Sets taught her the last five days how to control it. It was easier as she thought and she only needed some hours to suppress the power which tried to control her whenever the ornament made contact with her skin. The blonde even could control it so far that she was able to use some of the power it was able to deliver and she knew that was only the beginning.

But what she still couldn't control were the dreams she had.

-ö-

"I love the city of Uran, especially the day of the Uranian Ball. The houses and the streets are decorated and the people are somehow one inch happier than normal." She took an apple from the first fruit stand throwing some coins to the owner, who was thrilled by the beautiful _Ewige_ that he didn't get that he was overpaid. "Thank you very much, milady!" He said bowing slightly and the princess nodded to him walking away and Setsuna followed her. "I mean it is a city with so much joy, the people are happy nevertheless, but the day of the Ball tops it somehow."

"I know what you mean, Michiru. But when have you been here and joined the market for the last time?" Setsuna asked the aqua-haired woman, who raised one eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" Michiru knew her old teacher will try to lecture her and her gaze started to get interrogative. "Maybe some years? I still remember the last time as though it was yesterday. It was with…"

"…Haruka." Setsuna ended the sentence.

The princess locked eyes with her friend. She was shocked about the fact that she haven't been here since the death of the last Haruka and that was more than fifty years ago. Michiru frowned. "What changed?"

"Michiru!" Her old teacher began seriously and her red eyes watched blue ones with sorrow. "Uran isn't the capital of the Uranian kingdom anymore. Since the death of Haruka, not only he died but also the last member of the direct royal family. The war of the rebels ended after some month, but for what costs? The Neptunians occupied with some of the loyal Uranian soldiers the capital and the country after they defeated the rebels and this status still isn't rehabilitated!"

"What do you want from me?" Michiru asked mistrustful. "You know I love the people of Uran and the country, but I'm not in the position to change anything!" The aqua-haired woman stated hurted.

"But you could be!" Setsuna stared at the smaller woman who sighed and closed her eyes.

"I desire so much to be just normal. I would love to just forget about the fact being the princess…" She was thinking about the golden cage she was living in and about her endless life. _"…and being immortal…"_ She thought.

"Michiru, I don't know anybody who would be a better queen or a better king than you. And your mother knows that, too. Even your father wanted you to follow your mother for the throne and the moment you finally accept your destiny your mother will without batting an eye hand the crown over to you." Somehow she felt sorry for her friend, but she also knew that nobody was better than her. And that was a fact. "Michiru; You will be queen one day! For the sake of Nepta… and for the sake of Uran."

There was no reply of the aqua-haired woman. She was looking to the crowded market with reflecting eyes.

"You could change the whole situ…" The green-haired woman observed the princess' eyes becoming big and after a quiet moment the aquanette ran away into the crowd. "Hey Michiru…" She cried behind her, but the princess didn't mind and vanished between human people.

For some seconds the princess was sure that she had felt Haruka being near her.

-ö-

"What's up Haru?" Aiko asked the older woman. The blonde stopped suddenly in the crowd, humans bouncing into her due to her sudden stop, but she didn't react. She just stood there.

"Haru?" Aiko put a hand on her friend's shoulder who woke up from her numbness. Their eyes met.

The blacksmith reached for her amulet. "It's starting to get more powerful… It's kind of burning and trying to overpower me." Suddenly Haruka looked around, she felt something coming but she didn't know what or who whereas the necklace got more and more power. She tried to suppress it with all her mental power and fell to her knees.

Aiko watched the scene happening before her, when she felt as well somebody powerful approaching. Actually she had never felt someone mentally as powerful as the person heading their direction. And then the scales fell from her eyes and she knew the source attracting the person coming nearer.

She caught the ornament breaking it off of her friend's neck and with that the certain person halted some distance away from them and Aiko thought she had seen in the corner of her eye a blue haired woman stopping suddenly in her tracks three market stands away.

.

She could feel him and followed the trace and the presence of her partner's amulet got more powerful. Her own started to become stronger.

The next moment the trace was gone and nothing but emptiness in her heart was left. She stopped among a crowd, seeing and feeling nothing but humans and a few half bloods.

She observed the faces of the people and investigated their expressions. But they were all unknown to her. She reflected on the already dead humans she once knew and the handful that still lived. Most of them were aristocrats, she knew only a few who were normal people and who got the permission to enter the world of the _Ewige_. One of them was Haruka at least before he accepted his inheritance and was about to become the king of Uran. And the moment she thought about his human aura she swore she could feel the same a couple of meters away from her. She looked into the direction and she sensed a suspect aura next to the familiar one. _An Ewige suppressing his aura to a human form._ Behind the many people walking in her field of view she could barely see a kneeling man and a woman by his side, when suddenly a man walked by and stopped right in front of her blocking her view. She couldn't see anything but the just now arrived man.

"Michiru." A voice pulled her out of her concentration. She startled ruing herself that she made a mistake of beginners and did a tunnel vision but didn't feel the person her calling coming. "Michiru!" He said again with more effort. Their eyes locked.

"Seiya." Michiru was surprised for a second till she really recognized who stood in front of her and she coldly asked. "What are you doing here?"

"As cold as usual." He laughed whilst his heart broke more and more and the laughter became silent. "Would it be too much to ask for a little happiness to meet from my wife which I've last seen more than a year ago?" The long black-haired man stepped closer and pulled her with his arms to him kissing her fully on the lips. Michiru closed her eyes but wasn't responding and when he felt her not moving he stopped meeting again her eyes and explained. "The Neptunian princess wanted to join the Uranian Ball. So I thought why not accompany her for it? At least I'm her husband and we've seen us not really lately."

Michiru sighed. "Seiya. You know I…" She tried with more heart but was interrupted.

"I know." He nodded. "But I am still your husband and you as my wife should at least play your part and behave rightfully."

"I do the most necessary. But somewhere is the border of our playing and I'm not able to act anymore. You knew that from the beginning." She tried to stay calm.

"Pah. Don't forget all the times you made me forget it…" He got aroused once more about the conflict they shared from the beginning. The princess didn't love him and never did.

"Don't pretend and make me responsible for it." She looked around and hoped nobody would recognize her, but no one was looking, don't expecting their queen under the simple folk. Then she sizzled. "You have been as well like me responsible. At least you have been the one taking advantage of the situation. You knew I was destroyed and desperate that moment." Seiya shook his head.

"So you want to say that your son; our son was an act of despair? Will you tell him that it was a mistake and a one night stand whilst you normally slept with another man but not your husband? With your beloved human boy? Haruka!" He got slapped.

"Don't you dare to talk to me like this. I am as well your future queen… don't forget that fact." She slowly breathed in and out. "I won't listen to your nonsense anymore and more than ever in public. And now would you get out of my way, please?!" But he wasn't moving. "That was a command!" With that his eyes fell to the ground and he moved one step aside.

Michiru's eyes followed him. She knew he won't dare to say anything more right now. His echelon was lower as hers although they were married.

She passed Seiya and wanted to walk to the pair she had spotted before his arrival. But there was only the crowd with the unknown faces. _The pair must have already moved on_. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Michiru." She heard Setsuna calling her and then a surprised: "Prince Seiya. You're here?" The aquanette turned around and saw Setsuna bowing in front of him. She hated it that he wore her titles as her husband.

-ö-

"She's here!" Sets said coolly.

"Who's here?" Haruka asked confused.

"The woman who wants to have your amulet and its power to rule the world of Nepta."

"I don't understand what you mean."

Sets sighed. "Your amulet…" He pointed a finger at the ornament on the table and began to explain. "It belonged to the Prince of the Sky and eventually to the King. But that's another story." He scratched his head and sat down opposite to the blonde. "There were many Harukas before you and all of them including you were bond to that amulet." He stretched his fingers towards the amulet, but some centimeters before touching it he stopped in tracks; his hand started to cramp and he quickly withdraw it. Haruka knew somehow that she shouldn't have seen that scene and didn't say anything.

Sets cleared his throat and continued. "The amulet contains the power of the kingdom of the Sky; of Uran!" He smiled faintly. "Anyway when the amulet was once built for the kingdom of Uran, there was another one built for the kingdom of Nepta, as a balance to the mights of the world. Together the owner could rule the world of Nepta and bring peace to it or he could do the opposite and destroy all of it…"

"Who's the owner of the second one?" Haruka interrupted him.

"The Princess of the Sea possesses it."

"Is she the princess of Nepta as well?" _Why did I ask, I knew it already. _

Sets nodded and put his hands on her shoulders. "Haruka. You and the princess are bond together. It's destined for you to feel attracted to her as well as all your reincarnations before you. Your amulet gains for the other one and it projects it onto you. So be aware. The last prince died because of her. She pretends to be in love with you, but it's a lie. All she wants is the amulet to get the power to rule the world!" There were some silent moments whilst Haruka watched the amulet moving between her fingers. "The Sea is dark and you don't know what to find there. Betrayal will be unseen and your love for her will pull you into the darkness and you will never come back to the surface…" Haruka looked up shocked suppressing her stormy feelings of hearing exactly the same words Hotaru said to her when she was obsessed that night. "…you will die because of her. She will betray you!" But the blonde woman didn't hear him anymore. She thought about the night and about her little sister telling her after the obsession that the Sea loves the Sky as well.

Sets noticed her absence and brought her attention back calling seriously her name. "Haruka! Leave your ornament here. If she's attending the Uranian Ball this evening, she will recognize you by the amulet and only by that. She won't believe you being Haruka without having it even if you look like him! But we don't want to be interrupted by her. Today is the day we will bring down the chancellor; there are not enough men in the city to topple the whole government. So keep yourself ordinary and leave the amulet for the Ball." He knew she wouldn't and quickly said. "Keep it at least in your bag."

_ -ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-_

_**That's it for today. A little bit longer, but only a little bit, than usual. Hope you enjoyed it and you will review.**  
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	13. 12: Meeting again

**Meeting again.**

-ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-

Thanks to her traveling plans Lorelei was in the city as well; the best who could play her royal role properly surrounded by aristocrats was she and the fact that no one would see her face because the Uranian Ball was a masqueraded one was perfect.

Michiru looked at her servant who looked perfectly royal like her. The turquoise dress shone brightly in the sun light lighting up her royal chamber in the Uranian palace.

"I can't walk the stairs down with Seiya. He will get it that I'm not you!" Lorelei shook her head watching her mirror image.

Michiru sighed. "Why did he even come?" Somehow she got angry, when she remembered him being here.

"Perhaps he wanted to be sure that you were safe?"

"Or maybe he just wanted to watch me and tell me what to do?" The Princess couldn't believe that Seiya arrived due to her safety.

"Actually I think that he's in love with you. Really!" To underline her said words the maid nodded seriously with her head.

Michiru sighed and sat down on a stool holding up her face with her right hand. "I know and perhaps you're right. I blame myself for marrying him in first place and raising his hopes. I should have known that it would have never fitted. I haven't loved him and I will definitely never do. It's just impossible to imagine it." She raised her head and starred into Lorelei's eyes.

"Because you still love Haruka and you always will." Michiru nodded agreeing and suddenly rose from her stool.

"It's like a curse, which was laid on me, just to torture me with being so madly in love with a human man, who's dying when the years of his life are ending and leaving me behind, because I could never die, as much as I'd love to."

"Don't say that. You are needed here. Our folk need you. Nepta needs you." Loreleis voice became lower and lower till it was a whisper. "You are the princess." She knew that Michiru hated her life being like that: Royal and Immortal.

Michiru turned towards her maid with a neutral look. "And that's the second reason. I'm cursed to live forever and reign as the future queen a folk what doesn't understand the torments their queen is suffering, because they met already or will meet their soul partners and live forever with them." The moment she said those words she regretted. Lorelei's face turned sad, a tear formed in her eyes and rolled silently down her cheek.

"If your soul partner doesn't get killed you mean." She dried her face with a cloth and tried to regain her composure.

"I'm sorry Lorelei. I didn't mean to." Michiru touched the maids shoulder and tried to comfort her, but Lorelei shook her head.

"It's ok. At least I am able to understand your suffers." She lightly smiled. "So let's finish our outfit, it's nearly time for me to walk down the stairs."

Michiru nodded slightly. She didn't want to hurt her friend being that selfish. _Selfish - that's what she was, wasn't she? Maybe I should accept my fate and become queen and the wife Seiya wishes for… _

…_but definitely not today!_

-ö-

"There they come, keep your places." Arat whispered and nodded to the direction of four human men dressed up for the ball they were heading to. "Haruka, just the both of us will be enough – Now!"

The next moment Haruka jumped in front of the four men knocking one by one out. When she was finished Arat, their older brother Marolen and Aiko jumped out of their hiding spots pulling the man behind the corner. They searched in their pockets to get the invitation cards and when they found them they hid the men with straw of the horse stable next to them.

"I thought the two of us Arat." Haruka was complaining.

"Yeah, but I knew that you would be able to do it by yourself." He twinkled.

"Thank you for your trust, brother." Haruka nodded to him and both smiled at each other.

"Come on, you two, let's rock and crash the Party!" Marolen shouted from far to them. He was with Aiko already on the way to the palace. His language was something what Haruka loved. Marolen was living under human people and was behaving and speaking like them. That was something what made him more like her: A halfblood.

"The human words might be quite fitting." Arat laughed, when the two of them followed their older brother and Aiko along the dark narrow alleyway.

When they walked around the next corner the alleyway widened and isolated candles light up the stone paved street. The two moons were hidden behind a big cloud wall. The small group turned their hoods over, revealing their faces, but to no one's view. The alley was empty. The first people they met were walking at the next junction in the direction of the City-Palace.

Haruka and her companions copied them and put on their simple white masks, with the long noses and long peaked ears. It was the mask of the handful people of the simple folk, who had the honor to be invited to the Ball. All others were celebrating in the cities center at smaller Balls for the population.

-ö-

_The Uranian Ball was from the beginning on a Ball for the aristocracy of Uran and the Neptunian World. The first king who decided to invite a handful of the simple folk was the father of the first prince Haruka. It was the decision made on his birthday, which was on the day of the yearly Ball and became steady by that. The legends said that Haruka escaped the dictates of the court on his 23__rd__ birthday and joined the Uranian Market, which would change the Uranian Ball forever: _

_Walking through a small paved street he crashed into an aquahaired girl, who was followed by guards. _

"_I'm sor…" He wanted to apologize, but the girl put her hand above his mouth and drew him into a sideway making sure that the guards wouldn't see them. When they walked by she carefully watched them leaving and released the prince after being sure. "What on earth were you thinking you're doing?" He watched her taking some steps back._

"_I just wanted to be sure, that they won't catch me…" Her melodic voice sounded and her eyes wandered from head to toe. "…and you as well."_

"_Why should they want to catch me?" Haruka cleaned the clothes he wore. They were from one of the horse men, but nevertheless good-looking. The girl watched him doing so._

"_Because you were in contact with me." She smiled and Haruka looked up straight into her deep blue eyes. Haruka staggered. The girl in front of him looked not much younger than him. She stood there bathing in the sunlight like the goddess of beauty. She wore a simple white gown, what looked like a maids costume, but somehow when she wore it, it looked rather expansive and it underlined even more the beauty of this girl accenting her female curves._

_One of the girl's eyebrows raised, when she recognized the boy staring at her. "So, do you like what you see?"_

_Haruka shook his head to wake up. Blood rose to his cheeks. He cleared his throat. "Ähm…" He watched her bending her head slightly and laying her hands on her hips. The look on her face was a questioning one. _

_For Harukas sake he was saved by the guards who came back around the corner. They could hear them, not yet seeing them, but Haruka acted by reflex not thinking about it and grabbed the hand of the girl pulling her behind. They ran along the street and around some corners till they disappeared in a crowd of people._

_Haruka slowed down, the girl almost crashing into him again. The blond watched the people walking around them, suspecting the guards could have followed them. Then he turned towards her. "Why are they looking for you? What did you do?"_

"_How do you think I've done something to be followed by guards?" She asked snubbed._

"_What is it then, they are checking for you?"_

"_That's nothing for your concern!" She got a little angry and turned around to walk away. "If you may excuse me then!?"_

_Haruka observed her doing so, when he suddenly decided that he would regret it if she would walk away like this. "Hey, wait." The blond caught her arm what the girl observed with a scandalized look on her face. "I'm sorry. Really." He let go of her arm, when he felt that she was turning around facing him. "May I introduce myself properly to a Lady like you?" He bowed like other outranked aristocrats did to him taking his hat in his hand underlining it. _

_The girl's brow rose. "You're no normal boy from the street." She touched his clothes. "You're clothes may be from the simple folk. But you behave more like a Lord in false clothes, so tell me, who are you?" Her eyebrows furrowed._

_Haruka just stood there looking into her eyes. He was shocked being easily unmasked like that. He swallowed hard and thought about a name he could tell without unmasking more of him. "My name is Ruka." He hoped that she would be pleased by that._

_She was preoccupied in thoughts. She was sure that this boy wasn't just a boy. He must have been from the court, perhaps of the royal family. She remembered a blond son of them, she saw one time some years ago, playing with other children in the courtyard. But she would either way find out sooner or later and that was why she accepted his answer and grinned. "So Ruka then. Come on. I'll show you the normal's people life on the day of the aristocratic Uranian Ball, where only the powerful men are allowed to join." She twinkled, took his hand into hers and pulled him through the crowd._

"_Heeeey… at least tell me your name." _

_She smiled to him not loosing pace. "Call me Michiru."_

_Michiru. The name sounded wonderful to him and somehow quite familiar?! And the more he was thinking about how beautiful Michiru was; he got lost in the crowd and didn't know where she led him._

"_You will like it here. But don't tell your guys from the court!" She twinkled again and stopped in front of a wooden gate where two boofy men stood to the right and to the left. Haruka now recognized that they were in a Side Street of the Uranian Market and that there stood a long queue in front of that gate. The two doormen where checking the people from head to toe. Haruka watched the scenery happening in front of them, but he couldn't see what was behind the door, because it was only opened for one person to force through the small opened gap. He noticed not till then that Michiru just passed the long queue standing in front of the right man with Haruka. But she didn't mind and so was the queue as well as the doorman. Actually his grimly face turned into a bright one and he smiled at Michiru. Haruka was sure that the men was bowing slightly almost as if to suppress it and his lips were mouthing Princess or Prince!? Michiru was a little chatting with him and in the middle of their chat his eyes shortly observed Haruka till his dark eyes were returning to the girl. Haruka immediately loosened his posture, not being that straight like a aristocrat would be, just in case they were about to recognize him. _

_But they were not. _

_The dark haired man nodded and his companion opened the door just as small as Michiru was. And the moment Haruka wanted to follow her, she vanished behind the closed gate and a strong arm gripped his shoulder and restrained him. "You have to wait a little bit." The doorman's deep voice sounded. It was the one with whom the girl had spoken. After some seconds he heard a light knock behind the gate, and then it opened._

_Haruka forced himself though the small gap. The sunlight wasn't able to light up the room behind the gate and when it was closed it was pitch-black._

_He took slowly one step by another, following the sounds of light music coming out of the dark. After some seconds his eyes accustomed to the dark and he could see a small light getting brighter by every step he took. Then he heard steps arriving and he halted. _

"_You are the novice! " A woman's voice sounded. "Here take this." Haruka felt how she put a mask into his hand. "You have to wear it - Trust me." And somehow Haruka felt he could trust even without seeing her face but only hearing her voice. _

_He pulled the mask above his face and walked the last meters to the door where the light was shining. He heard music becoming louder as well as conversations in the background._

_When Harukas body was lightened up by the light, he walked half blind through the alley, following the music. His eyes needed some seconds to become accustomed to it. _

_When he could clearly see again, he saw people dancing and chatting as well as laughing in a large ballroom he had never seen before. Everybody wore the same mask as well as the orchestra in the background. They wore nice dresses and suits, looking almost too expensive for the normal folk. It looked all in all like a copy of the original Ball of the aristocrats he had to attend to every year and was probably already in full play right now and this time without him. But he wasn't sad by the fact missing it. Every year he was bored of the formal stuff and the even more boring persons attending the Ball. This one here looked funnier and happier._

_He was impressed and fascinated by the happy atmosphere that it infected him and his face relaxed behind the mask, only his smile visible to the people. _

_After some seconds Haruka remembered how he came here and he searched for an aquahaired beauty, walking slowly through the crowd, watching all the ladies carefully._

"_So you're already undressing the girls with your eyes?" An amused voice sounded from behind._

_Haruka turned around and blushed seeing Michiru standing behind him. She wore the same mask as everybody, but her beauty didn't suffer. "I wouldn't dare." _

"_Oh. I believe you." Her smile grew wider. "How do you like it here? It's better than the courtly Ball, isn't it?"_

"_Oh, I don't know. For this I should have been there just one time to compare."_

_Michiru laughed. "So if you never have been to the Ball you probably don't know how to dance. Then I have to search for another partner." She was about to turn around, when Haruka raised his voice._

"_I can dance." He smiled at her, when an eyebrow of Michiru rose._

"_Then show me." And again she took his hand and dragged him behind through the masses to the dance floor. When she suddenly stopped, Haruka crashed lightly into her. Michiru chuckled. "I hope you dance better than that."_

_And when they started to dance, Michiru wasn't disappointed. He was quiet a good dancer, maybe the best she ever danced with. _

_The first dance was a more common dance under the folk; all the dancing couples did in unison. Haruka knew this one from his teacher in dance lessons. It was more a jumping around and go round in circles, but what the prince liked was the happiness of the dance and that it wasn't as stiff as most of the formal dances. _

_After many of the casual dances, Haruka smiled brightly. He had the most fun in the last years he remembered and the most beautiful company he ever had. _

-ö-

The great Uranian Palace was monstrous. It was built of _Ewigen_ Art being a present of the Queen of Nepta thousands of years ago, when the old one was destroyed by the Dark War.

The decorated gate was more than four times as high as a normal man; the legends said it was for the dragons once lived in the country. Today it looked only too gigantic.

In front of the gate stood more than ten guards controlling the people walking through the gate. Haruka and her companions showed their invitation cards and shortly presented their faces as well as her clothes. The guards made sure that nobody was armed; the amulet in Harukas bag was only shortly examined. When they were released they stepped through the gate.

They made their way through the crowd and walked straight forward through the entrance hall to the ball room, which was not yet as full as the entrance hall.

"We should stay together until…" Arat said looking behind Aiko who was already waving her hand and following a black haired man to dance. "Okay. But we three…" He looked to his older brother who grinned widely and then followed Haruka's eyes. She was watching a certain blue-haired woman walking delicately through the dancing crowd. "Ok, ok. I get it. We meet again, when it's time." And with that he turned around and walked away with Marolen.

Haruka didn't notice them walking away; she herself stepped slowly down the stairs towards the dancing people, towards the woman who walked through the crowd. Something drew her to that certain woman, who stood there with her back to the blonde.

The white tuxedo of Haruka matched perfectly to the white-blue gown, which exposed almost the whole back of the woman.

The swordsmith reached out her hand to touch her on the shoulder, but only shortly before the contact the royal horns resounded. With that the dancing crowd stopped in their tracks and all guests turned around to the great stairs as well as Haruka.

"The Princess and the Prince of Nepta." The pair up the stairs was loudly introduced.

Haruka watched a black haired man leading a blue haired woman by the hand down the stairs. They had special masks on their face, they were more decorated and light golden. The man wore a black tuxedo and the woman a turquoise dress. And when she eyed the Princess from tip to toe she was almost sure that she recognized the certain girl behind her right there walking down the stairs. _She looks like the girl from the Lake. _He suddenly turned around looking for the woman who stood right there a minute ago. But she was gone. The blonde watched again to the Princess walking the last steps downstairs. "That's impossible. How…." She whispered, feeling a tap on her shoulder.

"How what?" Haruka knew that voice. She shook her head lightly taking a last look of the Princess and slowly turned around again.

There she stood again with a smile on her face and the light blue mask not able to hide the woman's beauty. Her deep blue eyes reflected emerald ones. "You're the girl from the lake almost killing me!" Haruka said astonished.

"How should I know that a strange half-blood would be the son of the Eldest Hotar?" She smiled. "Besides you were spying on me like you were today!" Haruka got red by the last comment and didn't know what to say. Somehow it was true, she was observing her.

After some quiet seconds the aquanette's hand reached out for the blonde's left cheek to check on it. When skin touched skin both felt an intense contact between them. Something reached each other's heart and they knew that the other felt it too, seeing it reflected in their eyes.

"It looks better than I thought. Hotar knows plenty of healing…" She spoke pretending not being affected by their contact. She watched the small scar carefully stroking the cheek one time. It was almost invisible. "…and thanks to your good healing abilities as a _Lebenlang_ it got only a small scar. You were lucky, a human…"

"…would have probably died." The aquanette removed her hand by Haruka's hard words.

"I'm not sure, but that could have happened." Her voice saddened and her eyes looked apologizing.

Haruka felt as well sorry for her words seeing that the other woman regretted what she did to her at the lake. "But it didn't!" The blonde tried to rescue the conversation and smiled. "I know that sounds a little strange, but would you like to dance with me?" The blonde asked out of nothing and was surprised by her own forwardness. She reached out her right hand, when the other woman raised her head and nodded lightly whilst her face lightened up. She accepted the others hand feeling again her inners warming up.

The tomboy led her to the next free spot in the crowd and they eyed up each other again taking their positions. "By the way. What's your name?" Both smiled at each other.

"Michi."

_ -ö-ö-ö-ö-ö-_

_**That's it, thank you for reading my story and thank you for hopefully reviewing.**  
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